Stanford Live!

[POSITIVenrgy]

That crowd is DEAD. Good GE in the drill for firebird imo.

Omg...I meant to plus 1 your comment and hit the minus by mistake!! So sorry. I was at Stanford tonight and actually liked a lot of things about BK's show. True, the electronics could be toned down..... but the brass sounded great and the drumline was fantastic. The crowd was clearly impressed and excited about many moments....... possibly it didn't read as well to FN viewers? I don't know. I honestly think the show has potential..... and I wish BK all the best as they tweak it and improve on it in the coming weeks!

Edited June 24, 2012 by POSITIVenrgy

[flammaster]

I really liked BK also! I look at it as a totally different presentation of Firebird. Loved their hornline!

Boston was straight up old school. Too bad they use Mapex. Both them and Pacific crest had tenors that sounded like rectum. BAC tuned their snare a lot better but you could still tell just barely. Mapex snares and toms suck!

I loved Phantom Regiment!

BD and SCV were stellar of course!

[ajwdad]

Having been there and seen all the shows, for world, only one show was unique and captured my attention. Nice show BD. The others were predictable, and somewhat boring. Unfortunately, they seemed to run together much like a rock concert. The BD show was unpredictable, fun, and different. I admit that i needed an explanation for the horses, but I needed explanations for Picasso and some of the rather odd books I had to read in English.

This is going to be an interesting race. However,anything can happen and I have not seen all the shows yet.

[flammaster]

Having been there and seen all the shows, for world, only one show was unique and captured my attention. Nice show BD. The others were predictable, and somewhat boring. Unfortunately, they seemed to run together much like a rock concert. The BD show was unpredictable, fun, and different. I admit that i needed an explanation for the horses, but I needed explanations for Picasso and some of the rather odd books I had to read in English.

This is going to be an interesting race. However,anything can happen and I have not seen all the shows yet.

I agree.

why polish the turd when you can do something unique like hang over the balcony!

[jmc5682]

I just got home from Stanford so here are my thoughts:

First I have to say how nice it must have been for all the corps today to not have to deal with any horribly hot conditions. It was a cool night, and except for the wind, a great night for drum corps.

Mandarins - An entertaining show, but they really have no chance doing well in World Class. They are simply too small and I feel would do well to switch back to Open Class. Still, I give them credit for putting on a respectable performance with what they have to work with.

Pacific Crest - A tad better than Mandarins, but I thought less entertaining. Not any real memorable moments.

Blue Knights - I really enjoyed BK last year, but it seems like they have taken a step back. The show needs some more impact moments. I am sure they will be making many changes as this is their first show, so I hope there is a lot more coming. I thought their performance was a bit underwhelming.

Boston Crusaders - All sections are solid, with their colorguard being (IMHO) the strongest. Visually they have a lot to offer and their music selections are easy to get into. I am looking forward to seeing this show progress. I felt they were scored correctly.

SCV - I had really high hopes for this performance from things I read about their performance last week at Family Day. Their horn line did sound better than I remember them sounding last year. Their percussion was terrific. I enjoyed the musical program this year much more than 2011. Their drill might be great, but is was just so filled with dirt. Their colorguard was a disappointment. If SCV wants to improve their ranking they really need to step it up. Don't get me wrong. I really liked SCV, I just was expecting a better showing.

Phantom Regiment - Phantom had my favorite music of the evening. They sure know how to create mood and emotion. Their all female colorguard was terrific and the guards red uni's are a great contrast to the white uni's of the corps proper. This corps makes such great use of color. I love the sound their brass creates. Classic Phantom.

BD - BD's hornline was by far the loudest, most powerful of the night. I was surprised, but I even like what they are playing this year. Their guard is great, but unlike Phantom, BD's guard has a heck of a lot they need to add. They spend way to long playing and throwing around these hoops, but I am sure that will change. The uniform changes in the show are interesting, but things are a little disjointed right now. BD has a lot of cleaning to do as there is a lot going on visually and things are pretty sloppy currently. I suppose that is to be expected at the first show of the year. They really need to add the end to their show because right now the abrupt ending sucks and leaves you feeling less than satisfied.

[scvjesse]

Just got home from Stanford as well. Normally I like I write up a thorough review of the shows I attend, but since it was broadcast live on FN, many/most of you already saw it. That said, I'll just give my impressions and keep it short.

Freelancers - Their alumni squad put on a standstill performance and I was impressed. Fun music and an outstanding trumpet soloist.

Renegades - Their group seems to be getting smaller every year (though, not my much), but the quality always seems to be getting better. Solid drumline, particularly the snare and bass lines and the front ensemble.

BDC - I'm not sure what happened... maybe there was a glitch in the announcer box, I don't know. Whatever the reason, after the kids got set up and looked ready to go, there was this strange pause for what seemed like 5 minutes. Those kids didn't even flinch for all of that time. Knowing the age range of those kids, that showed incredible professionalism, poise, maturity, and focus.

BDB - A bit smaller than recent years, but still a strong showing for this early in the season. I felt they edged out SCVC with their visual and with their percussion, but fell behind SCVC with their brass. The recap seems to agree with me.

SCVC - Hornline was very strong. They were noticably louder than BDB, all while not sacrificing tone quality to do so. If they can bring their visual and percussion up to par, watch out later in the season.

Mandarins - Another corps that was smaller than usual, but solid all the way through. I was especially impressed with their percussion section.

PC - Big sounds right out of the gate. They had a really rough go of it in the battery tonight. I suppose that could be why the Mandarins beat them in the Music Analysis portion, but that doesn't explain why they beat the Mandarins in percussion (I think the judges missed that one, tonight). Visually, they were a step up, cleanliness-wise, over the Mandarins.

Blue Knights - I need to give this show a few more viewings before I make too many judgements, but I had the feeling that I was watching a Winter Percussion show with brass and color guard accompaniment. It rubbed me the wrong way. There were several people around me that said it was the most boring show they'd ever seen. That said, it definitely had some good moments (particularly when they were actually playing and the synth was inaudible).

Boston Crusaders - I'm liking this show more and more every time I see it. The pre-show was brilliantly designed. This may shock some people, but I think they should have taken 2nd in visual tonight. Their visual program, at least from a cleanliness standpoint, was 2nd only to Phantom in Stanford. Their color guard did a lot to add to their visual program and effect.

SCV - They certainly did not disappoint tonight. Their visual program as a whole (color guard included) really needs to step it up. Musically this show was a beast. I'm not sure I like how they blended Mars into Jupiter near the end, but it could be that they just aren't quite selling it yet because it's June After watching the Fan Network when I got home just to get a second look at a higher location, it's fairly obvious that they're marching at least 1 hole, if not 2. That accounts for some of the spacing issues, but certainly not all of them. The visual demand of their show heralds back to the late 90s - there are a lot of super exposed, long diagonal lines that simply need to be cleaned. And by the way, even the new broadband version of that broadcast didn't REMOTELY do that drumline justice. I'm not exaggerating much here when I say that line is third-week-of-July clean right now. The spread probably should have been more than half a point.

Phantom Regiment - Clean clean clean! It's all been said before, so I'll only say that if they can keep beefing it up, they'll easily be in the top 5 or higher in August. I can't believe BD had them topped by 0.7 in percussion. It was a little difficult to hear on the live broadcast, but there were at least 3 SUPER SLOPPY battery sections in BD's show tonight, whereas there maybe 2 somewhat fuzzy sections in Phantom's battery (I'm talking about exposed sections, here). Granted, the field judge probably heard something that I didn't during the non-exposed sections, I just didn't see a 0.7 point spread between the two groups.

BD - Great brass, mostly great percussion (already talked about that above), and fun colorguard. After reading through this thread and watching people struggle to try and define what they just saw, I'll take a stab at it by taking my Blue Knights observation and giving it a twist. On the whole, I felt like I was watching a Winterguard show with drum corps accompaniment. The crowd didn't really know how to react during any of it, either. Most people around me clapped and/or cheered whenever the music stopped out of respect for how well they were performing, but during the performance most people around me were sitting on their hands because there really wasn't much effect in this show... and also because it was freaking cold out there tonight with that darned wind chill factor.

Aside from the fact that this was nearly a 4 hour round trip for me, and the fact that it was so cold (silly me - I wore shorts thinking it wouldn't dip into the 50s with an even colder wind in the middle of summer), and the fact that Stanford charged me $5 for a bottle of water, I'm glad I made the trip. A very enjoyable evening.

[BRASSO]

Recaps are up. SCV smoked everyone in percussion, Phantom won guard, the rest of the captions fell right in line with placement. (That's been happening a lot this year so far)

SCV has a great percussion line and that is really helping them a lot here in the early season as they are August ready right now in percussion, and way ahead of others in their grouping in it.

[BRASSO]

I really liked BK also! I look at it as a totally different presentation of Firebird. Loved their hornline!

I liked the accessible path that BK was taking over the last 2 years. They went back to being " esoteric " however this year, imo. I don't like their show at all this year.I don't like the interpretive liberties that the BK arrangers have taken with the originally written musical compositions in their show. It just doesn't work for me. Thats not " hate ", thats just my opinion and being frank about it. The judigng sheets this year were supposed to take into account the production's " engagement of the audience ". If so, BK was a 60-62 last night, as their " General Effect " scores should have reflected that. I liked Pacific Crest for example WAY more than BK and its funny to see the score captions where last nite the DCI judging community believes that Pacific Crest is over 7 and half points in back of BK right now, or that BK engages the audience a lot better than Pacific Crest here in June does. Even in the demand areas, BK spent time running around the field and did not play as often as PC did. These 2 Corps should have been closer in score than over 7 points last nite. The new judging sheets look remarkably like the old judging sheets right now to me here in the early going.

And finally, when it comes to "the engagement of the audience ", Phantom Regiment won this hands down last nite. They were in a league by itself imo. They were cleaner than BD here in this early going and should have won last nite, imo. BD had some surprising ( for them )very noticeable dirt in visual execution areas I thought. Their spacing, intervals, cover, and pattern formations for example were not as crisp as Phantom's. Thats how I saw last nite anyway. But its just one show, and its still very early, and August can usually look at lot different than June.

Edited June 24, 2012 by BRASSO

[mikespeed]

And finally, when it comes to "the engagement of the audience ", Phantom Regiment won this hands down last nite. They were in a league by itself imo. They were cleaner than BD here in this early going and should have won last nite, imo. BD had some surprising ( for them )very noticeable dirt in visual execution areas I thought. Their spacing, intervals, cover, and pattern formations for example were not as crisp as Phantom's. Thats how I saw last nite anyway. But its just one show, and its still very early, and August can usually look at lot different than June.

Yeah, that's what I saw too. Can't believe BD beat Phantom in GE Music, that's just bizarre. Phantom and Vanguard I thought should have both been ahead of BD in that caption.

In BD's show, I had no idea what they were supposed to be doing visually, and there was a lot of dirt. Phantom's show, on the other hand, was ridiculously clean. Eventually, BD will clean up and likely beat the heck out of everyone else, but last night I thought Phantom had the cleaner, more complete product, and should have been scored as such.

[Lincoln]

Is David Lynch the program coordinator for BD?