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31st Annual Festival of Drums and Bugles


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First off, this is my first review and I tend to be a brass guy as I do play the trumpet; so if you want a comprehensive drum or guard review... you prolly won't find it here :). The venue itself was a lot nicer than last year's and larger. The stands were in the shade, so the first few corps played into the sun, but the field was mostly shady. It was windy and the guy behind me said it was affecting the flags a lot. I was on the top row right on the right (facing the field) 40. Hope you guys enjoy or get something out of it. I'll try to do a review of Denton, too.

Frontier 54.0

Well, this was my first DCA show and it seemed to me that it was built around their sop soloist... he was an amazing player, but also about 70% of the sound of the brass line. It took me about 3 minutes to realize that they had no marching percussion. They were also slightly smaller. For their size, they managed to put out quite a bit of sound, but it did have a lot of individuals sticking out, but with a group that size it's really hard not to. Dan Potter misread the drum major because he/she turned around before their closer, so Mr. Potter said "from Dallas, Texas, Frontier!" twice. I probably would have done the same thing. I couldn't tell a lot about the visual due to the size so the forms had a lot of holes, so I couldn't tell from spacing. It sounded to me like the low brass especially had some feet in their sound.

Southwind 73.25

I really liked the new uniforms. They were pretty sharp. My main beef with this show was visual dirt. In their opener they do a lot of pass-throughs, but their routes weren't clean as a few people bumped shoulders while doing so. One bit in the guard caught my attention: a blue rifle. It stuck out compared to the white ones. If there's some themal significance, I missed it. There were some trumpet blending issues within the section and with the whole brass line. They did have a better sound than I recall them having last year. There was a staff member at the top of the stands... he yelled loudly, and so did the crowd. They totally dug the Kentucky team.

Mandarins 74.45

Man, those pole like props stick out. I could tell one of them was supposed to be Bamboo, but I tried watching the corps more than trying to figure out the props. They were the first group not to lose something. A guy from Frontier lost his hat feather, and a Southwind bari lost his shoe. My biggest concern was individual marching technique. It was not uniform, so I think it got in the way of the brass sound. They had ensemble balance issues when the brass was playing loudly. I noticed the guard changed uniforms, twice. Getting rid of the robe was a cool change, but I'm not sure I liked the pants they added on later. Also, I noticed one guard girl was playing pit percussion. I thought it was neat.

Colts 80.6

Can you say plumage? They had huge plumes... I thought they were kind of distracting, but I did my best to ignore them during the show. I'm not sure I liked the new? uniforms too much... when they were backfield the red seemed to bleed off. They had a nice first hit. They were also really loud. I totally dug Lieutenant Kije Suite. The muted trumpet quartet with the trumpet visuals was cool. They were the first corps that I thought had a really good color guard utilization being within the corps, as opposed to framing them. Most of the crowd stood up to applaud them at the end.

Crossmen 76.2

First home state performance. The crowd dug it. In their pre-show warm up, some guard members had a Texas flag and Crossmen flag parade down the 50. Oh my goodness... the capes were awesome. I loved the visuals they used with them on. And then the show began. The First part that really impacted me was the Russian Christmas Music company front after the Birdland section. Very nicely done. My biggest beef with the performance was the staff. Some of them ran down in the middle of the closer before the show was done. :doh: I liked them though, and had a hard time trying to concentrate on any one area to critique.

(intermission)

Carolina Crown 86.65

Um... I was in the parking lot during Crown's performance. I was listening to BD's space chords before I ran back to the stadium, which reminds me of my biggest complaint with the venue... during the earlier shows, you could hear the brass line warm up over the shows... For example, when BD was doing their space chords... was right at the end of Crown's opener... the guy behind me was afraid the chords would overpower Crown's ballad. From what little bits I could hear outside the stadium though, Crown sounded fantastic.

Blue Knights 83.55

Loud opener. They must have had a lot of general effect. There was a lot of dancing. One of the soloists had about a 20-30 dance solo after he played. Very interesting. I also liked the Shakos on the feet. Very nice visual. Biggest concern with the music was the constant mf-f dynamics. There was very little contrast. Oh yeah, and they also move a lot at the end. and fast. I was impressed. One big problem that occurred during this performance was a stadium speaker (I think) malfunction. It kept cutting out and wouldn't turn off... quite distracting... more on that to come.

Phantom Regiment 87.45

First thing I noticed, aside from the grey props, was the snare color. Very nice color. They were the first corps that I put my program and enjoyed. They were on fire tonight. They had a good show, and I don't think the scores reflected that. The crowd absolutely loved them. I loved the loud part in 1000 Airplanes where the brass kept going front and backfield with their horns. The flugel duet sounded really good, too. With them I actually noticed a lot of different colored rifles. I guess I'm old fashioned (or just out of it)... I thought the only CG tool that had different colors were the flags... :doh:

Blue Devils 90.4

I watched BD rehearse today. They worked a lot on their new ending, and I think it paid off because they performed it pretty well. The crowd didn't like them quite as much as Phantom, but for me it was hard to tell which one I liked better. The only thing that really stuck out to me was one person stepped off early near the 50 when the hornline was in the rear about to come forward. Nothing too critical... kind of how I noticed their staff was. Their staff was very positive and gave positive criticism during rehearsal... but my eyes and ears aren't as trained as theirs.

The Cadets 89.55

Remember what I said about the speakers malfunctioning? Yeah, I don't know if it was those or wind getting picked up in individual microphones, but Hoppy was getting mighty upset with something during the show, and I'm pretty sure it had to do with that, but with a show designed like the Cadets, it's very understandable why. The first thing that came across my mind with this show was another mental slip of Mr. Potter (I'm not trying to criticize, just reporting; I respect the man (I love field pass) and think that he's a great announcer) said that they had 8 World Champions.. a slip which he remedied after the performance. Before the performance, Mr. Potter announced the scores of the Houston show... I thought to myself that having heard that the Cavies broke 90 might have influenced the Cadets to perform a little harder, but they were probably so far in the zone (mentally) they didn't even recognize it. They were loud, too. I liked their brass line; couldn't hear any major tears or blending issues. Blue Shades trumpet soloist was playing pretty fine also. Last year the crowd response to the Cadets was a bit iffy. They seemed to buy into a little more this year. Much more applause for a well performed show.

Encore!

Blue Knights and Blue Devils played America... but I don't think they had two trumpet soloists play the melody at the beginning, but that might just have been my vantage point.. it sounded louder too.

Blue Devils then played their encore... some 70s song that I'm too young to know about... my mother thinks it was Earth, Wind, and Fire. They then proceeded to play segments of their show before marching off. EDIT: I forgot to mention, BD played F (Bb) Tuning before they played the rest of their encore... very cool. Down in front were 3 alumni who came to the rehearsal who felt necessary to stand up and wave their arms asking for the hornline to play even louder... very funny sight to see.

I would like to add a shout-out to the guy that sat behind me and my mother from Jersey. You knew a lot and were fun to talk to!

Edited by kadune
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From someone else who was there. . .I don't remember much of anything from the new ending, and yes I have watched the "old" ending online several times.

Sadly for me, this BD show in the last third or so of the performance still just lays there like roadkill. Great corps. . .clean corps. . .but something of a yawner right now.

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Thanks for the review!

Harvey

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Thanks for the review.

It was a great day for drum corps, that's for sure. My first DCI show as a performer and as an audience member.

But, yeah. The announcer was fooled by what we hoped everyone would be fooled by.

But, I don't think we're ever gonna end a show on a softer song like that.

Edited by Aggie Dan
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can you tell us about the new ending for BD?

Well, the only time I've seen them before is on Encorps so I'm not entirely sure how drastic the change really is (I didn't mention this, but I'm only 18; I marched 2 years ago and want to march again, so I'm not keen on noticing changes since I try ultimately to enjoy the show moreso than analyze the show... I know you can do both at once, but I have a one-track mind... :) )

Um, basically it's a kind of teaser. They play a few chord progressions that you think could be the end of the show, and then they go back to some darker chords and repeat a few times, while moving around a lot both fast and slow, then finally end with a nice major V-V7-I progression... Musically it feels like a bunch of codettas added on what the closer was previously. But as I tried to mention earlier, I'm not so sure how much it was different than before; I just know that they spent their last few rehearsal days focused on this with only a few minutes of rehearsal on the show leading up to it.

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