PeeWee Posted July 3, 2008 Share Posted July 3, 2008 (edited) Drum corps and fireworks, what better way to celebrate America! Thank you SO MUCH DCI for organizing this event with the Rose Bowl! What wonderful advertising for our activity! btw - I believe Pacific Crest and The Academy have performed at this event before. Kudos to them for being our ambassadors in years past! Entering the stadium at 6 p.m. - Blue Devils battery welcome us in and let the kids beat a drum 7:00 p.m. Pacific Crest "Primality: the Rituals of Passion" - The "primitive" theme coming from the pit instruments in the beginning of the show is effective. I just LOVE the tribal-type drumming throughout the show. The guard costumes are crazy busy! Cool visuals in the hornline and colorguard added to the theme. Good solid impact points tonight. My buddy Dereks' favorite show of the night. 7:22 p.m. The Academy "Vienna Nights" - Very crisp marching style. Some serious volume from the opening statement by the horns! They're marching 6 cymbals & 11 tubas (I think they may have a hole). The horn book is very difficult, as always. There's a lot of dissonance in their music this year. Kind of that angry/aggressive feel. But it's always followed by nice soothing melodies. Good contrast. The kids in the stands liked the "grunt" by the tubas. It made them giggle. The gallop piece in their show literally runs like crazy! Their drill seemed much cleaner than Pacific Crests'. Intermission 7:57 p.m. Santa Clara Vanguard "3hree" - Their closer has been added since Walnut, CA. Nice impact points in the opener. Their drill is insanely cool, even up through the closer! I want to say it's "Cavalier-esque", but it's still unique and even has some hints of Myron Rosander drill in there. I still like the groove of their "Body" part of their show. The rhythms & sounds are just...well, groovy! And the park and blow is just jammin'! This was the first corps of the night where the non-DCI crowd really started to get into their show. Their show has a larger variety of music than Phantom or BD to me. The "3" theme is more of a visual theme than a musical theme, with three rifles, three line forms, and triangles constructed in every way imaginable. The end of Vanguards' show. The "purple mountains majesty" in the background made this one of my favorite photos of the evening 8:23 p.m. Phantom Regiment "Spartacus" - very nice symphonic writing for the brass. Their drill was cleaner than SCVs. And by golly, jazz running really shows up well when you're wearing white pants! They do quite a bit of it in their show. They have some antiphonal segments in their music. Some of the full brass chords did come off a little top heavy (staging?). The guard costumes are so dark against those bright white uniforms that I often had difficulty noticing the guard during the show. The wood-colored rifles didn't help either. The slashing of the colorguards' throat by the drum major was very dramatic and drew a "gasp" from my mother. There was a cool fight scene between the guard and the horns, and cool yells/chants by the horns and drums as well. Overall, my mothers' favorite show of the evening. Standing ovation at the end of Phantoms' show 8:45 p.m. Blue Devils "Constantly Risking Absurdity" - The running sequences by the hornline members throughout the show are cool. They're literally sprinting around in full uniform! Their light/dark drop clothes were less distracting tonight, perhaps because my vision was so blurry by the time they took the field? They were cleaner than any other corps on the field tonight. Their white plumes add great visibility to their drill, and they do some light-hearted goofy things with them. I like the bright costumes and flags for the guard. It helps bring out their work (which was tighter than the other guards) during the show. They have a very solid show and they were performing at high octane levels again tonight. The crowd really got into their show, like when the drums "dance" while playing. The drum solo also nicely incorporates a full drum set from the pit. "Tightrope walking" prior to the start of BDs show Stick man figure towards the end of BDs show. It matches the figure to the right made by white poles 9:07 p.m. Combined brass lines played "America the Beautiful" The audience inside the stadium. I'd say we filled-up about a third of the stadium, so approx. 30,000 - 35,000 people on hand. Many, many more sat outside the stadium and watched the fireworks from the surrounding grass fields 9:10 - 9:35 p.m. Purportedly the best fireworks show West of the Mississippi! The drum corps kids had the best seats in the house too. I know I saw some fireworks I'd never seen before. Unfortunately, I'm not fast enough with my digital camera to capture them. Best of the night for me - Brass: Phantom Regiment Drums: Santa Clara Vanguard (sound), Blue Devils (entertaining) Colorguard: Blue Devils Drill: Santa Clara Vanguard Overall performance: Phantom Regiment (standing O from the crowd says it all) Edited July 9, 2008 by PeeWee Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ryan H. Turner Posted July 4, 2008 Share Posted July 4, 2008 JEEEEEEEEEEEZO PETE HURD! You scared me. I thought perhaps you bought a DeLorean with a flux capacitor in it and went Back to the Future on us. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CrownMe Posted July 4, 2008 Share Posted July 4, 2008 FYI, if you need food tonight at the rose bowl, VK is fund raising and working a stand. Support VK and visit!!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeeWee Posted July 4, 2008 Author Share Posted July 4, 2008 FYI, if you need food tonight at the rose bowl, VK is fund raising and working a stand. Support VK and visit!!!! okay, will do, 'cause I will (need food that is) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neholgate Posted July 4, 2008 Share Posted July 4, 2008 okay, will do, 'cause I will (need food that is) If I remember correctly the stand is #23 ..... is that at the main entrance to the Bowl Mayra? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NeutralNovice Posted July 5, 2008 Share Posted July 5, 2008 THANKS FOR UPDATING!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
84BDsop Posted July 5, 2008 Share Posted July 5, 2008 Slo where was the Vanguard yell and what was the reaction of the non DCI crowd? For that matter...what was the overall reaction to our little slice of the world? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeeWee Posted July 5, 2008 Author Share Posted July 5, 2008 Slo where was the Vanguard yell and what was the reaction of the non DCI crowd?For that matter...what was the overall reaction to our little slice of the world? There was no Vanguard yell that I could discern. The non-DCI crowd really seemed to enjoy bits and pieces of the corps performances. Academys' "grunt" by the tubas, Vanguards' first hit and their park & blow section, Phantom Regiments' overall volume, and BDs drum solo all got good reactions from the audience at large. I hope DCI does this again next year. It's great promotion for our activity. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HPUEuph Posted July 5, 2008 Share Posted July 5, 2008 I agree, there were some ooo's and aaah's from the non corps fans, but where I was at was obviously people musicaly inclined and knew something about corps at least, I was up near the press box in General Admission...I second the Academy's burp, that went over pretty well. DCI should really continue this, it's great publicity and in fact the kids around me were talking about auditioning for corps after what they saw tonight. This really is a great way for DCI to reach a wide demographic by taking advantage of public events to put themselves on display. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NeutralNovice Posted July 5, 2008 Share Posted July 5, 2008 That Vanguard picture really was awesome and perfect for the festivities! Those hornline arcs for the mass performance was AWESOME. The front three was perfect as well: Vanguard Red, Phantom White, and BD Blue. I REALLY hope someone (or F-NET) posts a video of that encore performance, that would be very cool! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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