DCI finals review

[SKEK_SOP]

Couldn't have said it any better, SKEK_ SOP.

Thanks

[sunbari1]

Well. you're certainly entitled to your own opinion, just a little odd hearing someone from Bayonne Bridgemen

talk about Visual Design. But, then again you are the self proclaimed “"visual guy"” what ever that means?

Don’t get me wrong, I loved the Bridgemen, just always felt their strength was the Brass and Percussion.

Everything I know about visual design is not from my Bridgemen years, those were just small bookends on my drum corps career. Bridgemen's visual design WAS subpar, especially in the 1980's, heck in 1987 when I marched our drill was laughable. I saw HS marching bands with harder drill.

So if, BD's perfect score in Ensemble Visual this year, last year and a perfect visual composition

score for the last three years is 'SUB-PAR"? {"for decades"} maybe all corps would do better

with what, in the "visual guys"”opinion is....... sub-par design.

You missed my point. I wasn't talking about the execution of the product BD put on the field, but ONE ELEMENT (drill) of the visual design which has many elements that work together, including drill, body visuals, color guard work, color, etc. Ensemble Visual is more execution than design and Visual Composition is based on all of the visual elements together.

And please stop using words like "more demanding"{ talk about dating yourself} the current sheets explore

the range of challenges presented to the performer aka "the book or visual vocabulary". The intellectual sophistication,

variety and freshness of BD's visual design, was unmatched this year, again!

"More demanding" music and/or drill ARE "challenges presented to the performer". Anyone who has marched competitively (which I have for 22 years) can tell you this. What one calls it is irrelevant, it's still the same thing.

[ffffingloud]

I love how some people on here think the disbelief in the Devils winning this year (and by so much with so high a score) equates to a hatred of the Blue Devils.

I love the Devils-- especially their music. Or at least I did in the past. I think they have the majority of the corps music in my iPod. And as for shows, I liked the My Spanish Heart show, the Bernard Herrmann show, Awayaday Blue, Tommy, Adventures in Time (with Bela and Bird), etc.

And I even liked the music in 2003 (what a great sounding hornline!). But their drill that year was ... meh.

It just seems that ever since 2003, the Devils have moved more and more toward fragmented melodic statements and drill that doesn't seem to flow well with the music. I think the last Devils show I have in my iPod is "SummerTrain blues".

As for Winged Victory... I couldn't describe that show if my life depended on it, and I can't remember a melodic line from it at all. And as for last years... I honestly don't even remember a name or theme.

And unfortunately 1930 won't be going in my iPod either at this point.

[Jeff Ream]

Where is the " crowd caption " on the judging sheet ? Look, the Blue Devils accomplished precisely what they set out to accomplish. Probably more. It is rare when the " crowd ' favorite wins the DCI Title ( 2008 being one of those rare years ) Out of the last 20 years, you can count on one hand where the " Crowd " favorite was also the DCI Champion. You, me, and some others may wish that was different, but don't blame the Blue Devils for understanding the judging captions and knowing what it takes to win a title, and being able to execute that in such a fashion that they ran away with the Title in such convincing fashion. DCI is NOT primarily a musical medium anymore. And it's NOT weighted toward the musical side on the judging sheets. It's weighted toward the VISUAL. I'm guessing the frustration lies in the fact that some fans are simply not aware of how DCI scores shows regarding the musical and the visual. And this explains the frustration.

i'll partially agree. while the math breaks down to 50/50 on how its weighted, commentary is 65/35 to visual. music judges have to comment about visual demands all the time.

yet never do visual judges talk about the music demands the performer must juggle with the visual. NEVER.

if this were the case, BD may still have won, but the spread would be closer, and, IMO, the visual demand numbers would have been lower than the visual performance numbers

[sunbari1]

I love how some people on here think the disbelief in the Devils winning this year (and by so much with so high a score) equates to a hatred of the Blue Devils.

I love the Devils-- especially their music. Or at least I did in the past. I think they have the majority of the corps music in my iPod. And as for shows, I liked the My Spanish Heart show, the Bernard Herrmann show, Awayaday Blue, Tommy, Adventures in Time (with Bela and Bird), etc.

And I even liked the music in 2003 (what a great sounding hornline!). But their drill that year was ... meh.

It just seems that ever since 2003, the Devils have moved more and more toward fragmented melodic statements and drill that doesn't seem to flow well with the music. I think the last Devils show I have in my iPod is "SummerTrain blues".

As for Winged Victory... I couldn't describe that show if my life depended on it, and I can't remember a melodic line from it at all. And as for last years... I honestly don't even remember a name or theme.

And unfortunately 1930 won't be going in my iPod either at this point.

I agree! I have always been a fan of BD, especially from the mid-70's to mid-90's. Being a brass player myself I always loved how they made hard as balls music seem so easy. I agree also that for the last few years, something has changed, and IMO, not for the better. They have been very forgettable shows not connecting with the audience, which has been the major complaint against DCI corps for the last 10 years which has resulted in declining audiences. Some corps got the message and have gone with more "traditional-type" shows this year (Crown, SCV, and even Cadets).

[Plan9]

Well. you're certainly entitled to your own opinion, just a little odd hearing someone from Bayonne Bridgemen

talk about Visual Design. But, then again you are the self proclaimed “"visual guy"” what ever that means?

Don’t get me wrong, I loved the Bridgemen, just always felt their strength was the Brass and Percussion.

So if, BD's perfect score in Ensemble Visual this year, last year and a perfect visual composition

score for the last three years is 'SUB-PAR"? {"for decades"} maybe all corps would do better

with what, in the "visual guys"”opinion is....... sub-par design.

And please stop using words like "more demanding"{ talk about dating yourself} the current sheets explore

the range of challenges presented to the performer aka "the book or visual vocabulary". The intellectual sophistication,

variety and freshness of the BD visual design was unmatched this year, again!

Spot on!!

First off, I know this has been mentioned by others, but this is NOT A REVIEW thread. It is simply yet another Therapy Thread (disguised as a review) designed to help those BD haters cope with their angst. A soap box for the losers gallery if you will..(and by losers I am NOT referring to the awesome competing corps, just the pathetic DCP posters that think they understand it all). The OP's (and others) rants are symbolic of the total lack of understanding of quality design and demand today. My guess is that if they sat down with the other corps show designers and said the kind of nonsense criticisms of BD they have been foisting on DCP over the last few weeks, that most of those designers for the other corps would tell them that they are full of beans. Those designers would speak at length about BD's designs (this year and last year) and speak about the quality and complexity of their design. In fact, Crown and Cadets used several of the nuances BD used last year for their shows this year.

Also, concerning the crowd reaction there are a few things at play here:

1) They're BD and the midwest wants someone else to win for a change! As was said earlier, if this was held at the Rose Bowl the response for BD could be measured on the Richter Scale. At Lucas Oil "some" people sat on their hands because they wanted their corps to be seen as better or they just wanted any winner other than BD. BD could have brought out Osama Bin Laden in handcuffs during their finals performance and that "certain bunch" of attendees would have reacted the same. IMHO the roar from the stands for PR last year would have been far less if BD would have place 4th or 5th...it would then have been purely about PR and not "thank God it ain't BD". Last year they had a vent (raucous applause)... this year they just had to "boo" and/or write "reviews" like this thread.

2) Someone mentioned that the crowd loved SCV and showed it....we all loved SCV but that's not a comparison that works as far as the crowd reaction is concerned. SCV has not won for some time and certainly was not in contention on Finals night...so the crowd could feel free to love them as loud as they wanted. Bottom line: It's not a California thing....it's a BD thing...period!

3) By the way, speaking about applause...you may be interested to know that BD was the ONLY corps on the field that applauded Crown when they won the Ott Award for best brass. THE ONLY ONE!!!! Obviously NO ONE on field applauded for any of BD's Caption Awards (including Crown)...it was sickening to watch. That speaks volumes about the lack of poise and sportmenship both on the field and in the stands. By the way, BD knows this..and fully expects to be treated like this as long as they continue to win at Lucas Oil Stadium! A small price to pay.

4) Finally, before any of you experts feel qualified to know enough about demand you may want to get with someone who can speak to the difficulty of BD's show(s)....like a show designer or choreographer. Instead, the montra of the uneducated on DCP have found several buzz words that they like to use this season to discribe BD such as "simple", "not playing much", "sitting in chairs", "cluttered", "distracting", "uninteresting", etc, all the trite comments that help sooth their hurt because the judging community doesn't agree with them. Most of them would not care to learn the truth, but if any of them would (again) sit down with someone who really understood drill and show design they would explain at length how BD's show was not only off the charts difficult but demanding in terms of individual skill.

Edited August 11, 2009 by Plan9

[Jeff Ream]

wow. not all of posting here hate BD. thanks for generalizing and, at the same time, making BD fans look bad

signed,

A guy who has loved BD most years since 1976

[Slow Adam]

Yowza.

[megadrive]

2) Someone mentioned that the crowd loved SCV and showed it....we all loved SCV but that's not a comparison that works as far as the crowd reaction is concerned. SCV has not won for some time and certainly was not in contention on Finals night...so the crowd could feel free to love them as loud as they wanted. Bottom line: It's not a California thing....it's a BD thing...period!

Yeah that was me, and it is a fair comparsion. Some people said that DCI should be in CA for BD to get a proper reaction. BD needs to go where a lot of BD fans are located to get a proper crowd reaction, while SCV can come to IN can get a standing ovation just as loud as it would be in CA. I enjoyed BD's show a lot more live, but the truth of the matter is SCV put on a more fan-centered show than BD, therefore they got the reaction. It's not because the collective midwest is constantly bitter at BD.

Edited August 11, 2009 by megadrive

[Plan9]

wow. not all of posting here hate BD. thanks for generalizing and, at the same time, making BD fans look bad

signed,

A guy who has loved BD most years since 1976

You didn't highlight my post so I'm not certain you're referring to me. But....just in case, I obviously wasn't referring to EVERYONE who has posted on this thread. Gimme a break. You know what I mean. And you know, we BD fans have two choices: put up with the kind of baseless criticisms that this great corps has been getting or say something.. and I said something. By the way, the corps members are back home now and will occasionally read these posts and I wanted to voice another view so that they know that some of us get it!