Lake Erie Fanfare Open Class

[richburgher]

It was a fantastic night at Harborcreek HS as a crowd of several hundred was treated to a great night of open class drum corps, while the corps were treated to upper 70s, overcast skies and and almost constant breeze that made the humidity an afterthought. Even the trains across the street timed almost all of their appearances around the corps' performances. There's a lot of quality drum corps in the open class so check them out before the season's over and show 'em some love!

Genesis- "One Night in the Valley" was a great program to open the competition. Quality sound and lots of familiar tunes drive this show from start to finish. "Quien Sabe" and "La Suerte de los Tantos" get things going. With the guard wearing polka dot dresses and tossing flags of magenta, black, pink and purple blocks, they add some visual spice to the latin beats. "Autumn Leaves" is a hilight of the program with contras playing juicy bass lines. "Mambo Inn" brings the tempo back up and preps you for the big finish with "Malaguena". Hopefully this is the first of many entertaining years for Genesis.

Spartans- "Fire Dances" is a classic Spartan show with lots of movement and visuals. Beginning in an upside-down Y formation, the guard appears from behind the corps in the neck of the Y wearing red and yellow tops with purple and gray pants and move to the spectator's left while the corps bows out in the opposite direction to create a great visual to set the tone. Spartans were easily the cleanest marching corps of the night and the guard's flags heat up in color during the program until bursting into flames by show's end. The brass and drums struggled musically but hopefully it was just a bad night. Clean music will raise the temperature on this show just in time for championship week. Overall a strong showing for the Spartans.

Strangnas- Sweden's Stangnas is small (12 brass, 7 perc, 4 guard) but have big hearts. Literally. A member of the guard has a large one stuck on her chest as the show begins. Who is the object of her affection? The soprano player with his own heart of course (oh sure, she digs the soloist ) The multi-tom player is thinking the same thing though and his attempts and unrequited love turn into jealous rage and a final confrontation. Stangnas performs quite well with a fun show that includes a good drum feature and a boogie down brass line. The sop soloist has the chops (thus the guard girlfriend) and the show is an entertaining winner.

Spirit fo Newark/New Jersey - Unfortunately, Spirit of Newark was unable to make the show due to what the emcee described as "internal problems". Hopefully things are ok with them and they will be good to finish the season.

Blue Saints- Blue Saints' "The Struggle Within" features a good selection of Danny Elfman music that is up tempo and not too dark. The guard has several flag changes whose colors and patterns coordinate well with the music. The hilight of the show for me is "Ice Dance", with the guard's blue flags complimenting the Edward Scissorhands ballad. Blue Saints are not world beaters but you can see that the effort is there and they are working hard. They don't seem confident in their performance and I think gaining some would go a long way in improving the program. Keep plugging away and they will have their best performance by season's end.

7th Regiment- "Macabre" is no joke when your pre-show involves a dead body and a coffin. 7th has a big sound and they show it off in the "Danse Macabre" opener. Lots of body movements also add a visual element throughout. Things grow creepier when a guard member begins to dance with the body from the coffin, then the rest of the guard find thier own expired partners. The dance with the dead ends in a pig pile of the deceased partners on top of the drum line (!?). Serenada Schizophrena brings the show to an exciting finish. This show was one of the crowd favorites and the only thing holding it back is the dirt, which won't be thrown on 7th anytime soon as they push Spartans in the standing.

Legends- Arches, fallen columns and stone walls set the stage for "Ruins", as the corps opens to the well-played calm of a new day that quickly decends into the eruption of "Vesuvius". The carnage continues during "Eruption", with the guard using mini volcanos as props. Calm returns during the Respighi pieces with large flags of cool greens and blues, but it doesn't last long as war picks up the destruction where natural disasters left off. Legends' guard costumes were the best of the night, wearing burgendy velvet single-shoulder tops with a flowing half-skirt that recall ancient Greek and Roman gowns. Sandal straps and arm bands complete the classy look and carry the show theme very well. The show is well designed but dirt in the music and guard hurt its effectiveness tonight. During Pins/Fountains of Rome there is a domino-effect sabre toss by the guard. The timing was spot on and when all the catches are made it will be a great moment in the show. "Ruins" is a show that can make a run if the details are taken care of.

Velvet Knights- VK makes its presence known immediately with its playful pre-show interaction with the crowd and the drum line members running across the field during warm-up. "Magical Mystery Tour-2010 Edition" begins with the classice Beatles title chart and then heads south to the Caribbean, where bright, tropical colors, limbo contests and drink trays (another mimosa please!) parade around to the "Romancing the Stone" soundtrack. Later, "La Vie en Rose" signals the arrival in France, where the smittin drum major pledges roses and his love to everyone he sees. The tour ends with a can-can kick line to "Orpheus in the Underworld" and a big finish. VK was the audience favorite tonight with their seriously funny performance.

[Mello9406]

Finally someone writes an open class review!!! Thank you sooo much! :)

[rayfallon]

Man, what a well written review...

I'm not prepared.

[Madrid]

Finally someone writes an open class review!!! Thank you sooo much! :)

No kidding, right!! Sheesh.

THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU!

[corpsreps]

Awesome review. Nice to see some open class discussions on here. This makes me look forward even more to Michigan City next week.

[richburgher]

Wow! Thanks for the compliments everyone. I forgot to mention the encore was played by Legends and they performed a standstill of "Ruins" with full pit and guard.

I try to do reviews of all the shows I attend and that's usually just two a season (this year three!) so I try and make them count. Really, there's no other open class reviews? Hard to promote the product without word of mouth advertising.