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bartyount

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Everything posted by bartyount

  1. I remember being on RAMD in 94 to get scores during the summer.
  2. Yeah - that's what every corps should do - give the finger to the fans. You know - those people that pay money to see you? I'm not against trying something new, and people are welcome to like it or not. But if they were to have done it as an "F U" (as you put it) to the fans - that's just stupid and childish. Cadets' 2007 would have been awesome without the narration. I saw them live several times during the last two weeks of the 2007 season. They played and marched the crap out of that show. But I've never listened to the recordings or watched the video of the show because I can't stand all the voiceover.
  3. If you make the corps management aware it shouldn't be a problem for them to accomodate you. I know when I marched in Coats there was a young lady in the guard who was type 1 and she did fine as far as I know.
  4. IMPOSTER!!!! Everyone knows Bluecoats bleed Blue!!!
  5. I've "fannetworked" Bluecoats' show twice and I'm disappointed in the design. The music is good and they are doing it well and will get alot better. But to me it doesn't seem to flow well musically - maybe I'll change my mind after another few viewings. The visual design at this point is just bad in my opinion. Maybe it seems bad now because the show is somewhat incomplete as some have said. But right now it doesn't look good as far as design. As mentioned before, talent will only take you so far. To make it into the top 3 or 4, you have to have a well designed package in addition to the talent. Bluecoats have had a top 4 overall package twice in my opinion: 95 and 07. In 95, they didn't have the talent for top 4. In 07 they had both the talent and the overall package, but had the bad luck of having both of those things come together for them in a year where many other corps did as well. (Bad for Coats - good for the fans!) Bluecoats have had top 4 talent for several years. Now they just need to get the show design to that level.
  6. You may be mistaking reminiscing for not getting past something.
  7. Scores play a huge part during finals week in that it determines who makes top 12. For the most part, the order doesn't matter so much. A show doesn't become my favorite because it placed high. In fact, none of my top 5 all time favorite shows were 1st place winners. But scores matter in a big way for those last few corps at the bottom. It seems DCI history remembers the "Top 12" and everyone under 12 is forgotten for the most part. An anecdote to illustrate - in 1991, we (Sky Ryders) were on the cust of top 12 the entire season - duking it out with VK, Spirit and Dutch Boy. I, and I think most of the other members felt that the survival of the corps depended on us making top 12. It created a huge amount of pressure on the members and I remember that we had several fights among members break out due to the tension and pressure. On semi-finals night, when we found out our score and found that we had made it to Saturday night, I remember it was such a relief that my knees buckled - I almost collapsed - and I nearly broke down and cried from relief.
  8. The storm surge during Katrina was 28 feet. The Mississippi coast was actually hit the hardest, but didn't get as much attention because the MS state planning and response was effective and people actually evacuated the MS coast whereas New Orleans was a complete cluster which was compounded by the levees failing. People like to blame the feds but the problem was primarily with the state and local authorities. Initially, the feds were asking the states what aid they needed and Louisiana officials actually said they didn't need help.
  9. Ditto that. By the way, because I'm a nitpicky smartarse, the first ever Preview of Champions was not in Nashville in 1992. It was in Madison in 1991. I know because I was there.
  10. As far as athleticsm goes (aside from the crohn's and asthma), you should not let this worry you. I was never athletic and probably couldn't have run a mile when I first started in drumcorps. Drumcorps got me in shape. However, that is not to say that it is acceptable to not prepare yourself. I was able to make it without the preperation, but it was not smart and it made it very difficult and physically painfull for me in the beginning. The following years I knew better and began running every day several weeks before the season started.
  11. Yes - there was alot of things going on that made that night unforgettable. All of the shifts in placement and then Regiment being the dark (literaly) horse having placed 4th in quarters, moving up to 3rd in semis and then the buzz of the fans on finals night wondering if they actually had a shot at the title. Experiencing the score anouncements that night is probably my favorite drumcorps memory as a fan. All the placement switching (including Bluecoats moving up two spots which I was happy about) just set everyone on the edge to begin with. Then that long pause while they were presumably recalculating scores to make sure they hadn't made a mistake and probably trying to figure out how to announce the tie. Then when it was actually announced, it was just complete chaos (in a good way). It was fun.
  12. I'm no fan of amplification/narration/etc, but I think there's a world of difference between using vocals as effect and using it as exposition.
  13. Haha... very funny!!! But do you always shout when you type? JUST KIDDING
  14. I have heard the "Why are they booing?" on occasion (once from my dad after I had marched there for two years - ), but I never heard it so much when I was on tour working the souvie's last year. I think after every show someone would come to the booth and ask about the booing ("We don't understand, we really liked the show!") and we would explain and everyone would have a good chuckle. The best one though was at Drums Along the Rockies in Denver last year. After the show, a couple coming out of the stands made a beeline for our booth: "We are SOOOOO sorry for how rude the crowd was towards them. We are SO embarrassed. This is really a very nice town - we don't know why everyone was so RUDE!" I had never seen anyone so upset about the "booing". Needless to say, they were very relieved after we explained the situation. Turns out they knew absolutely nothing about drumcorps before coming to the show that night. They had just seen a local add and decided to come check out the show. Pretty cool. I got a good laugh over this because that's what I thought every time I heard that line.
  15. I personally never watched the guard/percussion angles so the trade-off of getting high cams for all the corps is a win for me. However, I'm afraid that we have probably lost the commentary/judge tracks to save space on the discs. The commentaries were the best part of the DVD package in my opinion. Before: 2 corps per disc, 4 angles each = 8 video tracks. 2008: 6 corps per disc, 2 angles each = 12 video tracks. <= Need more room on these discs. If the DVDs don't include the commentaries, I wish the corps would make a commentary podcast for the show. Maybe DCI could make it available on the Fan Network and make it available for download, etc.
  16. Ever since corps started amping the pits, the recordings (even the CD's) have the pit WAY too loud. It's annoying.
  17. I've got some APDs from San Antonio and they sound really good to me. I hope that the bad quality you are experiencing in the Quarterfinals APDs is not indicative of the quality of the DVDs/CDs.
  18. SCV and Bluecoats were pretty much neck-and-neck all season, right to the end. Bluecoats had an edge in music and SCV had an edge in visual. I think it could've gone either way on any given night. It just happened to be in Bluecoats favor on finals night (last year, it was in SCV's favor on finals night). I personally liked both shows alot and can't really pick a favorite. Wow. You feel that the 2007 show was a failure? Really? Yes - their visual design has been their weakest link (hopefully that will change soon), but I don't see how anyone can say that 2007 was a failure unless that is based purely on their finals placement (edit: compared to their placement in the previous few years). In 2007, the 4th through 7th place corps (Bluecoats, Phantom, SCV and Crown) were within a point of each other all finals week if memory serves correctly. It was another case of it could be anyone any night in my opinion. But Bluecoats ended up at the bottom of the pile despite having scored higher than the year before when they placed 4th and with what I think most people considered to be the best overall performing Bluecoats line to date and also one of the best show designs (despite the weak visual design).
  19. Don't get me started.... oops - too late... No doubt that visual was Bluecoats' weak spot in 07. But to my eyes, the problem was not so much the forms or feet, but with the design. I felt the members were performing fine, it was just that the material they were performing was not top 6 material. I hoped that this would be recognized by corps management and that we would see a new visual designer for 08. However my fear that the visual staff would be the scapegoat was realized. This was unfortunate because, as discussed previously in the thread, the visual program will now need time to be rebuilt and they would still be performing non top 6 material for 08. In addition, as I understand, the members really liked the former visual staff which may have had an impact on morale (conjecture on my part). Luckily the new staff seems to have at least not lost ground from 07. Hopefully they can improve as they solidify the visual program the next few years. But I don't think they will be able to make significant advances until the visual design improves.
  20. I don't know how practical this is, but maybe the judges should just take notes during the show and then assign scores afterword - or even just assign a rank instead of a score.
  21. ESPN has better things to broadcast than DCI.... ...like cup stacking (I'm not kidding).
  22. Just curious, how does everyone feel about the finals results between Coats and SCV? Of course, I'm happy that my team was able to pull ahead on finals night, but I wouldn't have begrudged SCV anything if they had stayed ahead. I have to say that SCV has my favorite drill design this year and I absolutely love their show.
  23. They added a crown to crown set of moves reminiscent of Star's cross to cross in 91. Saw it on FN last night at semis. It's awesome!
  24. I'll second that! Thanks guys for helping us junkies make it through the most important night of the year!
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