chaos001 Posted May 25, 2008 Share Posted May 25, 2008 it'd be nice to have a thorough PR camp report...if anyone could help Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
acn Posted May 25, 2008 Author Share Posted May 25, 2008 (edited) Ok - finally a few minutes. 6 hrs. driving and 11 1/2 hrs. of rehearsals later. First bear in mind these are unbiased opinions, and accounts of things I noticed. Good and bad. PR - horn line was in a circle when we got there. 2 contras 1 euph 1 mello were playing the parade tune from memory. It was not good, and JD Shaw said that all those sections would run 5 laps because of the way those 4 played. Then they started working show music. The opener has the cool double tongue sop thing to start, then the Spartacus theme. The horn arrangements are typical PR. For me that's good and bad. Lots of crunch/dissonant chords. Multiple tonguing. Octave mello rips. I was VERY impressed with the upper lead sops. Serious chops. There were numerous times they could have gone up a 5th on top, but the book is arranged mainly for the mellos to have that voicing, which makes sense for PR. A few things I noticed about rehearsal. One guy came in a bar early on an entrance. The staff made him run a lap. While he was running he missed at least 3 reps of the same segment. Immediately when he got back, he missed the same exact thing again. Again he ran, and missed 3 more reps. Oh well. I also watched a guy mark time to the rhythm he was playing. Dotted quarter/eighth/quarter, rather than marking the quarter like the rest of the corps. I watched this for a few hours, and no one said a word. Full brass staff/techs and no one said anything. Little mistakes, I know, but I hope they don't figure they've got two months to fix them. Then at the end the whole horn line arced up, and played the whole show while the staff recorded it. Wow. Talk about POWER. Very, Very difficult horn book. An extended, difficult mello solo in the middle piece. Very enjoyable show. I'd be shocked if they aren't top 5 this year. Scouts - I mentioned the somewhat rough solo. After a few reps, 2 staff took him and went to work it out. The staff was somewhat annoyed. Nick Williams(?) from SCV is co-caption head, and ran ensemble. Very quick instructions/directions. If people made mistakes they were immediately down for push ups. Because there were so many people watching, he went down a few times and called everyone in for what I would call a reality check - even though it was only day 1. There were several people watching the drumline, and Casey (snare tech) said he didn't know if it was nerves, peole watching or whatever - but they better figure it out. People eventually calmed down, and played much better. I think the snare line will end up being much improved from last year. Tenors (all vets) are smokin already. Basses seemed a little out of whack, but with #5 missing, I'm not worried. Cymbals were all new, and it was neat seeing the tech teach them different techniques, and the souds they got from it. I didn't hear any talk about making finals. Just about getting better. Focus. Intensity. I only heard the 2nd piece, but difficulty is there, potential is there. I really didn't see/hear enough show music to get a good feeling about where they are at this point. A lot of time was spent on the parade tune. Scouts are doing Brat Fest in Madison on Monday. 2 great days. 2 corps, two very different teaching philosophies. Some great kids, and really, really enjoyable DRUM CORPS music. I can't wait to go back up next weekend, and see the progress that's been made in a week. Edited May 25, 2008 by acn Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
acn Posted May 25, 2008 Author Share Posted May 25, 2008 (edited) One more thing. One of the Scouts visual techs asked me to play frisbee golf with him, which I did for the first time. And the corps fed me supper. Pretty cool. I'm just a fan, but people went out of their way to say hi, and thank me for coming to check them out. I'll remember those gestures as much as watching the corps. Edited for crappy spelling. Edited May 25, 2008 by acn Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chaos001 Posted May 25, 2008 Share Posted May 25, 2008 *sighs* that's some good stuff. SUTA! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dcpfan08 Posted May 25, 2008 Share Posted May 25, 2008 my one two favorite corps, i'm still trying to decide who's one and who's two lol. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MJN Posted May 25, 2008 Share Posted May 25, 2008 Nice My friend in the snareline said that they are way ahead of where they were last year at the same time, so I was glad to hear that. He said some other stuff too, that I'll keep to myself - I admit to being completley biased Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
acn Posted May 26, 2008 Author Share Posted May 26, 2008 I admit to being completley biased Oh, I'm completely biased in which corps I support. I was just attempting to be un-biased in reporting what I saw. Can't wait until Saturday. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
acn Posted May 26, 2008 Author Share Posted May 26, 2008 *sighs*that's some good stuff. SUTA! Why the sigh? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chaos001 Posted May 26, 2008 Share Posted May 26, 2008 Why the sigh? afterglow from that post ;) it's good to hear an outsider's opinion of PR. i hope they live up to the hype this year. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StradmanBW Posted May 26, 2008 Share Posted May 26, 2008 MJN and acn, PMed both of you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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