Allentown

[mobrien]

btw, a number of internal changes in Cavaliers show too. Not a major new ending, but some of the transitions have been re-arranged and (to my taste) improved.

Edited August 1, 2009 by mobrien

[jjeffeory]

I agree, heard all the hype and hoped for more. fell a little flat. Not sure what Rhapsody has to do with the 30's since it was written and performed in 1924.

For me, it's at least some more melody where the whole hornline plays.

[Jeff Ream]

To hear the DCI.org folks tell it the past few years, the stadium there is kind of the Bermuda Triangle for tech equipment - I don't know if it's gotten any better with the expansion and whatnot, but it used to be the worst stadium on the DCI tour for trying to get anything electronic working in a logical fashion.

Mike

it still sucks.

[GREENBLUE]

btw, a number of internal changes in Cavaliers show too. Not a major new ending, but some of the transitions have been re-arranged and (to my taste) improved.

Totally agree...loved the new brass changes, need to be cleaner but definitly an improvement. The small visual changes were good as well. Still think that their going to need to do something more to help bring up the GE scores. While some may think this show boring I think it to be absolutely beautiful. This is an amazing year for drum corps and on any given night I believe anyone can win. Enjoy BD's show but dont understand the point difference between them and Cavies, Crown, Cadets. Maybe that will change in the coming week

[Jeff Ream]

Considering where this show was, the crowd reaction comment doesn't surprise me, heh. As for the rest...

i live in PA and have usually liked Devs. this left me flatter than last year

[Jeff Ream]

Am I the only one not terribly impressed by BD's ending? It just seems like they tacked on the piano playing the last notes of Rhapsody in Blue, and then played a loud chord to end the show. Maybe I thought it would be something radically different, and from the looks of the scores, I guess they don't need to change much at all.

yeah it came across forced

[saxfreq1128]

I was there tonight. Really tired, but a few notes, mostly about Cadets, Cavs, BD (because they're the easiest to remember when I'm passing out). More on everyone else later.

1) Audience reception: Crowd was more into Cadets, Cavs, Bluecoats and many of the rest than BD, but I don't know what this says about anything. They all gave great shows. Everyone in the audience was lucky!

2) Performance: In terms of performance, BD can be caught. My opinion might change when they get a little more confident with that ending. Brass is still having some issues with that opening hit, in my opinion -- the sopranos, leading up to the big moment, have always sounded a little coarse to me. Otherwise they sound pretty good. They move very well. Guard is beast. The synth doesn't bother me, but it never did; actually I think it's a great touch, and I'm glad they've finally figured out how to balance it with the rest of the corps. Yeah, they're doing very well. Not Champion well, but then again, it isn't championship week.

Cadets came with a mission. I admire the performance of the show more than I admire the design. The drill looked better than ever before, and the brass really let it hang. The guard does well, but I do wish that they were given more interesting (rather than just difficult) work. Oh how they all just run and spin with so much more ease than they did earlier in the season. Very, very good.

The Cavaliers usually give late-season performances that I find hard to critique. Whereas BD walks onto the field and I think "Bad*ss" and the Cadets walk on and I think "Class," the Cavs walk on and I think "Polished." So there it is: polished.

3) BD's changes: Yeah. BD has a new ending. I'm not sure about it yet... I don't think BD has really known how to end a show in a satisfying way since 2006, and I say that as a tried and true BD fan. Sure they've been big and loud, but they haven't really left me feeling that the show was "complete" in the emotionally resonant sense. Whereas 2003's ending was VERY legit, and 2004's lack of ending was at least thematically appropriate, and high-powered 2005 had an ending that made up for a lot of the preceding 11 minutes (in my opinion, and I have affection for that show), recent endings have felt like they were grasping for something similar without quite getting there. So, yes -- not sure yet.

They keep adding more and more small changes and, while it doesn't hurt the show, I'm not sure each of these changes really helps. The show feels like it has lots of icing. Not being a huge fan of sweets, myself, I sometimes found myself wondering whether I'd prefer less icing, more cake. Same to the Cavs. The Cadets show, on the other hand, has lots of cake -- but, in terms of really doing something new with WSS, I could use a smidge more icing. End metaphor here.

4) Design: My problem with the Cadets show is that I'm not sure they do enough with it, from a design standpoint. A WSS show that's not terribly liberal with the source music (which is probably a plus) but which also fails to really push the theme in eye-opening ways. Conceptually, there's nothing here you wouldn't expect a basic WSS story to do, which is refreshing in one sense because you can focus on how good the corps is without trying to figure out what they're doing; but on the other hand, it's kind of limiting. Let's face it: WSS is very familiar, and so I think the designers maybe relied on this too much. That said, WSS also kicks serious butt, and so does this show. Sometimes a traditional approach has pretty exceptional results -- Cadets 98 didn't exactly move mountains in terms of design, and yet had a great effect on me. Same for Cavaliers 04, and to a slightly lesser extent (because it took a few more risks) BD 2003. This show could win.

Cavaliers... I giggled when I found out the theme for this show a little while ago. In a good way. You have to give them something -- there is no other corps that would've thought to put a show about rock climbing on the field. Lots of "That's neat" moments. But I'm starting to find it difficult to stay engaged with their shows, because on some level, the shows are starting to feel like the plastic cover on my grandmother's couch; that is, I keep wanting to sit down and hang out awhile, get comfortable with the show, but something about it keeps me at a sort of distance. Like it's saying, "Like me. But don't fall in love with me."

People would dig BD's show more if they thought of it almost entirely as an exercise in mood -- less a story of 1930, less a puzzle laden with complicated clues. I think this show is well-designed. Most of my comments are above in the "BD's Changes" section, but I'll add that the show really takes you places and is a pleasure to watch. BD is better at everyone else when it comes to making their program a living, breathing, unpredictable thing. What the chairs accomplish is an interesting way of making the field something that can be molded and changed; they're showing us how much of a stage the field really is. I like that. I can't tell if I think it's 1st place activity-changing innovation (see: Cavaliers, 2002, "Frameworks") or solidly second place innovation (see: BD, 2008, "Constantly Risking Absurdity"). I maintain my reservations about the ending. But I loved it nonetheless, and a great performance of this show could definitely win.

5) Demand: They're all hard. Cadets run around a lot, do lots of pass-throughs at the ends of their big numbers, have their middle voices do lots of neat runs. Yeah, that's hard. But it's also their style (and they are not doing that for all 11 minutes, mind you). Carolina Crown seems to want to take up this tradition, and that's cool. But BD, Cavs et al. are decidedly, admirably, different.

--

That's all folks. Zzzzzzzz....

Edited August 1, 2009 by saxfreq1128

[supersop]

VOD's ARE UP!

[Ed Boxer]

Wow, rereading this after few hours sleep, this came off really bad. I fully appreciate all the hard work that all the corps are putting into their shows, as always. Further explanations added.

Just got home from Allentown so a few quick comments (my first show of the season):

Overall - I hated the way synths were used in most of the shows. In almost every case, the synths didn't really add anything to the shows. In many cases, it seemed like they were using the synths to water down the brass book.

Cascades - the first with the hideous overloud synth and pit - you could not hear their brass most of the show. I love Sondheim's "Not while I'm around" but the arrangement is pure exposure.

- the arrangement of "Not while I'm around" is full of very exposed brass lines that need a few more weeks of work. It was very hard to get into their show when they were being drowned out by the pit and synth.

Pioneer - why have a synth playing a bass line instead of having the contras playing. Again - over loud pit and synth

- this seems to be a step up for Pioneer in design, they were somewhat cleaner and had a better brass sound than in previous years. Nice use of soloist field spacing

Mandarians - Pit was so loud you could barely hear the soloists and brass.

- Sorry, but again, hard to get into a show you can't hear. I felt really bad for the soloists who could barely be heard at all. I actually wonder if the pit being so loud was causing some of the phasing problems.

Pacific Crest - drill is too easy and still not clean. Lose the white sheets - they add nothing.

- They were selling it hard. I can appreciate the use of the white sheets as part of the "Mass" scene, but they need to do something more with them. When they first put them on, it looked like they were about to do a "Casper the Friendly Ghost" scene.

Academy - It was loud and dirty. A much ado about nothing show.

- very big brass sound but the show seems to be effect over substance. They are trying very hard, maybe too hard.

Troopers - from the hype I expected to like this more. Some interesting concepts. One hand one heart - my favorite moment of the evening.

- Great to see Troopers this size again with a substantial guard and playing very well. Nice show concept with some really nice brass arrangements. Somehow, the double sunburst was lost on me. One hand, One heart - absolutely beautiful arranging.

Glassmen - missed them - due to the delay they eliminated intermission - but didn't annouce that fact.

Bluecoats - some serious brass sound coming from them again this year. Show doesn't do much for me.

- Great jazz brass sound coming from them with some killer sops and great contras. But I never got the connection of "Imagination" from the lead character.

Cavaliers - sorry but this is a colorguard show with Belwin Band Bulider accompaniment. Cavies make some nice brass sounds - when they are standing still. Most of the show is gimmick after gimmick, with sound effects.

- Some really cool effects/gimmicks from the guard and guard/corps interactions. The brass sounds better then they have in a few years because they actually get to play some. But they don't really play and march/drill much at the same time. When I first saw the guird uniforms, I thought to myself, how cool Cavies could pull off a comic take on "the Lonely goat herder". The few comic synth touches were the first to actually add something to the show.

HNC - Drill was dirty in places - but the best brass sound so far. Could have done without the sythed dialogue. Multiple Standing Os.

- They are playing and marching the hell out of this show. There is still some cleaning that needs to be done. Loved the guard costume change towards the end when they put on the stylized 80s guard skirts. The whistling syth opening was good, but somewhat too loud. For me, the synth dialogue was really unnecessary. This show/movie/music is so familiar i think most of us already have those lines memorized. But would love to see the corps split over the 50 and have the guard come through doing the cool group dance where they all hunch and jump as one (you know the movie).

BD - they played, they sat, it was almost all clean, but did nothing for me. Got golf applause.

- It seems like they designed the show around the chair gimmick rather than adding the chairs as a necessary part of the show. Something I don't understand, if visual scores are partly based on demand, how can you get such high scores when you are on a chair for a good part of the show?? Synth piano was too loud and took away from the overall effect.

Some overall comments -

1. Whatever happened to playing a melody and developing it to a climax? These shows were almost all snippets strung together for effect.

2. Why use a synth to double or replace a brass part? For me, that seems to be counter productive on many levels: it lowers the demand (and should lower the score) and it says to the kids - you can't cut it so we'll drown you out. Prime example was the very basic simple bass line in Pioneer that was played but the synth rather than the contras.

3. And once again, Allentown struck with the double-wide couple sitting next to me taking up 4 seats. If your ### doesn't fit in one seat - buy two tickets!!!

[Penn State]

sum up my feelings of lasts night show in a nut shell...

all the corps had excellent performances last night. I did enjoy every show on the field.

however...

I found the 'amped' pit and other electronic 'toys' extremely distracting. IMO, all the shows last night would have benefited from the ABSENCE of all things electronic in the pit.