Canton, OH: Pro Football Hall of Fame DCI Show

[Strutters '72]

Troopers music was somewhat disappointing to me. Grover's Corners, from SCV 1984/85 was beautiful and maybe the only piece I liked, but their show lacks from direction and musical content. Kids are doing a great job and the performance levels are good. They have a fantastic trumpet section! Nice job guys! It's not the performance of the corps, what is hurting them is the design of the show. The visual is good at the onset, but after the opening hit there is not much that grabs me. There is one section toward the end of their show where they begin to jam and I was loving it, then all that came to an end and the show just sort of ended. Design is a killer.

Might be because of the two 09 Blue Devils members who decided to march with Troopers this year. BTW, one isn't a "guy".

[Tez]

Troopers music was somewhat disappointing to me. Grover's Corners, from SCV 1984/85 was beautiful and maybe the only piece I liked, but their show lacks from direction and musical content. Kids are doing a great job and the performance levels are good. They have a fantastic trumpet section! Nice job guys! It's not the performance of the corps, what is hurting them is the design of the show. The visual is good at the onset, but after the opening hit there is not much that grabs me. There is one section toward the end of their show where they begin to jam and I was loving it, then all that came to an end and the show just sort of ended. Design is a killer.

Might be because of the two 09 Blue Devils members who decided to march with Troopers this year. BTW, one isn't a "guy".

Really? I didn't know that kind of thing happened.

[Strutters '72]

Really? I didn't know that kind of thing happened.

Really.

And honestly, this is my daughters 7th year marching and she says she is having her best year ever. Perhaps we put too much value on winning, not enough on the fun experiance it can be.

[N.E. Brigand]

What fine comments! I haven’t enough to post a separate review on this show, so I’ll just append some further thoughts here.

This was my second year in a row attending Massillon, following a ten-year gap in seeing live drum corps. I found the rumors of drum corps’ death had been greatly exaggerated, and DCI proved not to be the “corpse” the Cleveland Cavaliers announcer kept referring to in the ridiculous posthow promotional hijinks. Being unable to leave work and pick up a friend in Akron in time to catch Pioneer, I was pleased to at least hear “Make His Praise Glorious” coming through clearly to the far end of the parking lot, a couple hundred yards backfield. Even though the show was already underway, there was still a substantial line for tickets. I caught Spirit from halfway up the stands on the 50-yard line. That wasn’t where my seat was located, but the attendant at the seating entrance had let me come in just after the performance had started – although I didn’t realize it, and assumed I was hearing a bit of preshow as I scanned the stands for section numbers to find my seat. Suddenly I realized that Spirit was really playing, and ran up to the first empty seat I could find, doubtless to the annoyance of the people right behind me. I liked Spirit's show much more than the Kansas arrangements they played last year (when their announcer mispronounced “Massillon”). Then I found our seats, which were about twenty rows up, and on the left 20-yard line, and proceeded to enjoy every other show, too. Madison was very strong and great fun, though some fans sitting close by were a trifle obnoxious in their enthusiasm, which (as previously noted) seemed artificial. They left just after Madison finished, thus missing the Blue Knights, who very nearly matched the Scouts as entertainers and musicians, though their quiet moments were marred, from my perspective, by the sound of a guard rehearsing behind the visitor stands – some sort of loud timing beat to which they practiced. During intermission, my friend bumped into an acquaintance who turned out to have been a member of the Troopers in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Her corps was on next. I found them a little better than Spirit, though with less of a through-line. The Cadets were an absolute joy, and Little Geoffrey delighted much of the crowd. There was a fall by a backfield mellophone or baritone player during a fast backfield rotation, but he was back up in a few seconds. Santa Clara Vanguard proved to be much more accessible than I had feared based on earlier DCP comments, though the early low brass passage was almost inaudible from where I sat. And the Bluecoats were expertise personified, if a bit heavy on electronics. On the whole it was a great evening and a clear step up from the previous year’s Massillon show.