Rifuarian

So to prove your point you cherry pick a handful of comments from what is most likely a troll thread from a forum with thousands of threads and hundreds of thousands of posts, and post them out of context? And then you finish it up with the classic "quitting DCP 4evar" (there are at least a couple dozen of these per day). I'm sure I could do likewise for whatever SEC forum it is you frequent (it's certainly not the one I'm a part of). DCP is a pretty nice place.

DCP is a fairly mild-mannered and well-moderated forum. The only real, consistent nastiness I can recall came during the Cadets bashing era between 2005-2008. I hear much, much, much worse things out on tour from staff, members, and fans. Stuff that would never fly here on DCP. The difference is that out there you're usually surrounded by people who more or less share all your opinions, whereas on here you have to deal with a variety of viewpoints. Some people find that very hard to handle.

Dumb outrages I remember from DCP past: 2004 - Crown's bohemian themed show is promoting an unhealthy, unwholesome lifestyle to kids! (Seriously, someone posted this). 2005 - Cadets show is promoting violence because the color guard outfits look Uma Thurman's out fit from Kill Bill! (This poster was apparently unfamiliar with Bruce Lee). 2008 - Phantom's show is too violent! Families with young children and sensitive artistic types will be offended! 2010 - Marc Sylvester is wearing a Che Guevara t- shirt! He's advocating for a dictatorship of the proletariat! This will make an excellent entry for 2013.

The two million + French men and women who died in the past century while defending their country (about twice as many as the number of Americans who have made a similar sacrifice ever) might disagree with you. Yeah, yeah . . . relax, it's a joke, etc. I'm sure everyone would be relaxed if a similar joke had been made about America and American soldiers. This is the sort of ignorance and disrespect we should concern ourselves with, and not some imagined slight that may or may not have occurred in the middle of a marching band show.

Thanks! And also thank you for reposting this on DCP so that more Indiana residents can find out about it. I'll try and keep it bumped. 15 bucks is still too much for me to pay to watch drum corps in the ThunderBarn, but for many others it's probably not. Hopefully you and I can work together to get some butts in those seats.

Trust me, they won't care. Americans are for the most part unique when it comes to having massive rods jammed up our backsides when it comes to respect every last little niggling detail of flag protocol. The French love their country as much as we do ours but they don't quite worship the tricolore in the same way we do the stars and stripes. There are desecration laws but they're intended for outrages far more severe than what takes place in a summer marching band field show.

Don't worry. They've had this offer for a few years now but it's so poorly marketed that hardly anyone knows about it. Go find another storm in a teacup to ##### about.

Except that it's not true. At all. Attributing broad characteristics to an entire generation based on personal experience is nonsense. And who is making the "everyone's a winner argument"? No one that I can see. It's a straw man. You've thoroughly demolished that straw man, but the actual arguments that have been made still stand untouched. And the whining may not always be explicit (though it often is), but it is always implicit in these kinds of threads. Notice the randomly selected emoticon I put at the end of my sentence. I put it there so I can defuse tension and dissuade people from challenging my groundless argument by making any attempt at rebuttal appear ill-humored!

Does anyone else find it just a little bit ironic the same older fans who are hurling (untrue) insults at millenials are also engaging in ceaseless whining because a show they don't like is winning? It's tempting to say something snide about the greed, narcissism, and entitlement of Gen-Xers and Boomers, but making sweeping generalizations about one population cohort or the other is just stupid and lazy. What makes things even more ironic is that younger fans are - from my own observations at least - heavily pro-Crown and anti-BD. Some are even participating in the booing. Which is unfortunate.

The screaming and conniption fits and physical punishments can be excessive, silly, and (IMO) counterproductive, but rarely are they abusive. That's not to say drum corps cannot be abusive. There is a line and it is sometimes crossed. My two seasons of drum corps were spent in an especially toxic environment, with several staffers who could only be characterized as bullies or worse, though the guys teaching my particular section were all right. Motivating the kids wasn't in it at all. It was pure spitefulness and hatred . . . and yes, I know the difference. Fortunately the corps imploded the year after my last season (I ended my drum corps career at 19). Now my sister is marching in a corps that's contending for a championship, and while the staff does occasionally go OTT it's night and day compared to my experience. So abuse does happen in drum corps. Fortunately it is rare, and the corps in which it occurs don't tend to endure. But for the kids who pour their money, time, blood, sweat, and tears into the endeavor it can be a hellish experience.

Guess we can scratch another school from the list of potential housing sites. As if they weren't already hard enough to find.

It goes back a lot further than that. I love what BD is doing, but all they've done is transpose WGI onto a football field. Which is no mean feat, but that "innovation" word that gets thrown may not really apply to BD. IMO the Cavies of the early and mid 2000s were the last true innovators in drum corps. This is not intended as a slight towards BD . . . they're the best in the biz at almost everything.

Drum corps fans aren't bad at all when compared with fans of just about any other competitive activity in existence. Yeah there are some nasty ones, and the booing sucks, but that's life. I can't help but remember the Cadets Hate-Fest back in the mid-2000s as well as the corps whose fans seemed to be nastiest back in that era. I know kids and parents and even some staff members today are mostly clueless about that . . . but there is just the faintest whiff of poetic justice in the air.

Have you not read the past few pages of this thread? Seems as though people are being pretty honest. Ultimately it's about the show, not the corps, no matter how hard some wish it to be otherwise. Anyways, watched the video and enjoyed the show. Look forward to seeing it develop over the summer. One question though, and it's a question I've asked many times about many shows and never gotten a truly good answer: What makes is it that makes it "intellectual"?

Utter nonsense. On tour you constantly hear things that are far, far worse than anything you'd ever read on DCP. DCP is a pretty mild, well-moderated place . . . but it does make a convenient scapegoat. Especially if someone dares to say something even mildly critical about your corps. Yes it is. The same could be said for approximately one billion other activities. It's that other stuff that matters. It's what makes drum corps unique, it's what convinces us to march in the first place, it's what keeps us coming back. Small wonder we're passionate about music, drill, and uniforms. I will not be replying to anyone, or even looking at this thread again because someone might say something mean and my precious feelings will be hurt. Edit: If you're purely trolling I tip my hat to you. Good stuff.

I'm not sure if I'd like to see any corps program the Divine Comedy after being subjected to so many hilariously cheesy marching band shows using the same theme/music back in the 90s. Certainly not with the R.W. Smith music . . . much as I love his arrangements and original compositions for corps, I'd rather not hear his concert hall stuff on the field. Tchaikovsky's Francesca da Rimini and Liszt's Dante symphony could work well for Phantom, though thematically such a show would be too much like Faust.

The meat and potatoes of the Fan Network - the live streaming - absolutely belongs behind a pay wall. Stuff from the current season - APDs, etc. - too, of course. But I feel the video archives would be of more use to DCI and drum corps as a whole if they were on YouTube.

If only the Cadets had saved their 2006 show for the trip out west they might have gotten a much better reaction, at least from the "marijuana high" (lol) part of the crowd. Sadly there's no way they could have appeased the drunkards. Anyways it'd be nice if California could get another finals, but I'm assuming that unless attendance completely bottoms out the big show is in Indy for good.

I must be confused. I thought the post I responded to said this: Whereas it apparently said this: The former is of course demonstrably false. The latter is true. Apologies for my mistake.

Being a southerner myself it sure does seem that way, but: Atlanta Average Rainfall in July = 5.27 in. August = 3.90 in. Allentown, PA Average Rainfall in July = 4.95 in. August = 3.69 in. Info from weather.com. While it does rain more in Georgia it's not a huge difference. I hate shows in domes, but it's not hard to figure out why DCI holds regionals in them whenever possible. But surely holding the SE regional outdoors once would be preferable to holding it on a Sunday?

The best thing you could do is finance the summer for yourself. Despite what DCP's most hilariously obtuse poster would have you believe you probably will not be able to finance your education by working, but you can finance a summer of drum corps. It may take a few years to make it happen, but it is possible. I know many kids who march a year then a take a year off to pay for the next summer, and many kids who have saved for years just to march their age-out. It's not ideal, but that's the way the world is nowadays. The intensity of financial pressures on young people mean that we are seeing fewer and fewer 4+ year super-veterans. But better to do it once or twice than not at all. Also consider a corps you don't have to fly to in order join. That raises the price tag just a bit.

Never bothered me one bit to shower with the gay guys. The girls were welcome to shower with us too but for some reason none ever took up the offer. Occasionally some of our gay, male members would shower with the girls. No one ever complained about that either. Though I've heard that corps where similar things happened got in hot water with housing sites over the matter. When you're sweating all day in the sun your inhibitions about showers vanish pretty quickly.

I've always thought mandatory marching band policies to a bit questionable. Though in my experience more high schoolers will complain about being forced to take concert band in order to be in the marching band rather than the other way around. But that's at highly competitive marching programs, and the author and many of the commenters seem completely unaware of competitive marching band. Truth be told it seems like the author is writing from a state of near complete ignorance when it comes to band. Sounds like his knowledge is based on a single conversation and Google search for "mandatory marching band". Unfortunately many of the pro-band commenters seem to be completely ignorant of the workings of high school and college athletics. In short it's more of an amusing discussion rather than a useful one.

I agree that you were too sensitive and over-reacted. I'm glad the problem is taken care of and that the thread can get back on topic.

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