Crown vs. Bluecoats in ‘07

[Gaddabout]

that was boston

Argh. Apologies. My shows are getting mixed up. Thanks! Point remains.

[rmurrey74]

The music for Crown was a bit more accessible to the non-discerning ear. Everyone knows their music, including my mother-in-law who knows nothing if it wasn't first played on an FM station 20 years ago. Bloo's music was darker and not recognizable to someone who hasn't spent some time in music education as a student or teacher. Fiona Apple -- interesting, but still not quite recognizable to the mass audience. That had something to do with it, I think.

Other than that, I think Bloo's opening effect was cool, but Crown really featured the color guard from start to finish. They were the stars of the show, and they used some really different props to sell the theme. I'm pretty sure that's the last we'll see of white steeples on the field. With the horsey costumes and everything ... it was just a tad cleaner and easier to digest.

By comparison, Phantom's use of the easels was a creative stroke but unfortunately just looked clumsier from the stands than it actually was. Phantom did well, but there was too much visual complication there in the props to really sell it to the crowd.

Oh, one more thing: Crown had a good sense of humor throughout the show, and that's *always* appealing. Again, not at all knocking Bloo's show. I love it when a corps really nails a theme. Just answering the question.

Just a correction, I don't think Fiona Apple was in the show.

[patblamo]

Wait a minute. What happened?

Wherever I went in the Rose Bowl, people greeted me with "Don't you love Crown's show" or similar such praise. I heard the same in Allentown. Not one person - not one - likewise struck up a conversation during the summer or since with "How about them Coats?" And no, I didn't wear my Crown shirt at any event this summer.

Now I'm to believe everyone secretly was loving the Bluecoats and posing on Crown? Or is this just another one of those DCP threads where everyone talks about the other thing - you know, the question you didn't ask?

HH

I think you will find that DCP is disproportionately skewed toward Coats and PR. I AM NOT SAYING there is ANYTHING WRONG with that, it is just an observation. On the other end of the spectrum, IMOO, are the Cavies and BD, their fans just don't come near this place...

...back to the topic, I think it is splitting hairs on whose guard or brass was better. People loved BOTH Coats and Crown because the programs were theatrical and entertaining. Note to judges: isn't that General Effect? 6th and 7th?

Edited September 26, 2007 by patblamo

[Nex]

Plus, our show had ONE major chord in it. People are more comfortable with major harmonies, instead of minor ones.

Only one in the whole show? As long as your show was based on a western scale system, it had to have more than one major chord unless you had accidentals in nearly every measure. Unless you mean a sustained chord? And minor harmonies are just as prevalent in both classical and popular music as major. Saying people are more comfortable with major harmonies doesn't really have much of a base. Plus, there are plenty of people that prefer minor (me for instance) over major. That doesn't mean I like Bluecoats' show better. It was an amazing show, but I think someone mentioned it best with the comment about Crown just having "it." Nothing about major versus minor, or even mood. People love dark shows (PR '96 anyone?). It's all about "it" . . . and accessibility.

[liebot]

I think you will find that DCP is disproportionately skewed toward Coats and PR. I AM NOT SAYING there is ANYTHING WRONG with that, it is just an observation. On the other end of the spectrum, IMOO, are the Cavies and BD, their fans just don't come near this place...

It goes in waves. After the 05 season and even throughout '06 there were tons and tons of Crown homers (marching members, most of them) posting on this board about how amazing their hornline was, etc. etc. etc. It seemed like there was a thread about Crown every other week. PR's always been huge, and Cadets are always the topic of discussion. I'd agree with Cavies and BD being rather underrepresented, although both have their fair share of homers on the site.

[Phantom&Phitch]

for me Crowns guard made the show... especially the flag feature in the begining of William Tell.

[gjdavistuba]

It goes in waves. After the 05 season and even throughout '06 there were tons and tons of Crown homers (marching members, most of them) posting on this board about how amazing their hornline was, etc. etc. etc. It seemed like there was a thread about Crown every other week. PR's always been huge, and Cadets are always the topic of discussion. I'd agree with Cavies and BD being rather underrepresented, although both have their fair share of homers on the site.

Yeah, there are quite a lot of Crown homers. But quite honestly, hardly ANYONE who comes on here and talks up Crown is actually a marching member....I believe you are wrongly accusing marching members of talking up their own corps...when, quite frankly, we don't. Anyways, I already posted my opinion on here....and of course it is that the Bluecoats were incredible this year, and I highly respect them. It was fun competing against them this past season.

[Jared_mello]

Yeah, there are quite a lot of Crown homers. But quite honestly, hardly ANYONE who comes on here and talks up Crown is actually a marching member....I believe you are wrongly accusing marching members of talking up their own corps...when, quite frankly, we don't.

not recently, no. in the past, it was easily more prevalent than with any other drum corps.

Saying people are more comfortable with major harmonies doesn't really have much of a base. Plus, there are plenty of people that prefer minor (me for instance) over major.

haha, i think the poster was referring to babies, not drum corps fans. :P

there was one major sustained chord by the way, yes. last one of the show. picky, picky.

Edited September 26, 2007 by Jared_mello

[mellodramatic]

It goes in waves. After the 05 season and even throughout '06 there were tons and tons of Crown homers (marching members, most of them) posting on this board about how amazing their hornline was, etc. etc. etc. It seemed like there was a thread about Crown every other week. PR's always been huge, and Cadets are always the topic of discussion. I'd agree with Cavies and BD being rather underrepresented, although both have their fair share of homers on the site.

All these Crown homers you talk about are not marching members. There bored kids sitting at home that probably got cut from Crown.

[Elmo Blatch]

Many would disagree, but both corps were better than SCV

Hey, I would actually consider adding BK to the list of corps that outperformed SCV at Finals week. ;)

For me, Crown seemed to come the farthest this year. I was kidding my buddy (another Bluecoats alum) with whom I work when we were watching Semis and I commented "how mad are you gonna be when Crown passes Bluecoats tonight?" He didn't think it possible. For me, I saw Crown gaining steam and support. Everything Crown did improved over the course of the season.

As for the Bluecoats, I don't feel they had the same advancement that Crown had visually. A million fingers can be pointed but those blames are all irrelevant now. I remember Larry Hershman telling me in early June, "this may be the best hornline I have heard--and they are not clean yet," which is quite a statement if you know Larry Hershman and his amazing history in drum corps. Accordingly, I think that much of the Bluecoats' success this year relied on an amazing drumline and hornline. I think as the season progressed, there were not enough significant elements added to the visual part of the show. Additionally, weak statements in drill did not help GE Music when needed (for example, having the hornline break the Miranda silence on the 15 yard line is not really effective...musically or visually) and when it was apparent that the drill and additional visual elements were not working, they were not changed in order to make the program more inviting. As scores were not raising like they were expected, I can imagine that the hornline and drumline staff did their best to help raise overall scores on their end by making things as absolutely clean as possible (i.e., watering down some difficult music prior to Finals). This course of action, which probably seemed good at the time, had a devastating effect; it raised scores in Brass and Drums, but had a terribly negative effect on General Effect--one perceived weakness of the program, as GE has plays a larger factor in scoring (40%) than does MUSIC (30%).

The CC/Bloo 2007 argument/discussion really boils down to the way a show is scored. As long as GE and VISUAL get 70% of the overall score, corps that place a larger emphasis on visual are going to score higher. Ask the Cavies. In comparison, winning DCI is kinda like trying to win the board game Risk by winning South America and Australia; while important in the grand scheme of scoring, you have to have the goods in the higher scoring areas to win it all. Sadly, one can also make this comparison to Presidential elections and the Electoral College. Corps that continue to win have figured this out and have made it work to their advantage. I proffer that if MUSIC was factored as 40% of the overall score (instead of VISUAL), Bluecoats would have finished no less than 3rd in 2007.

Elmo Blatch