emc2 Posted July 30, 2013 Share Posted July 30, 2013 If the Blue Devils were playing "Big Bad and Blue" this year and winning I would bet my new set of dentures you would not hear booing. They are winning any ways just like Cadets, PR, BD and Cavs the past 10 years. Crown will win next and life will be good and everyone will move on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NakedEye Posted July 30, 2013 Share Posted July 30, 2013 I'd like to know your source for this, something that I can verify. If it is, in fact, true then each and every member who contributed to the show deserves boo'd by your logic. I call B.S. until you show proof of your claim. It is very much true that the BD members contribute ideas to the show. Scott Chandler discusses it in one of the very interesting "conversations" they have with the staff on their MediaBox site (those can be viewed free, without membership). He touches briefly on show construction and how some of the staging and movement decisions are made, and there are many things which sprout from watching the members try something, or do something improvisational, which he then notices, asks them to do it again, and it gets modified and perhaps used for a grouping of people, etc. Anyone who just writes their show off as "boring" or whatever is doing themselves a disservice by not checking out some of those videos before casting judgement. The amount of thought and research of the source material that went into the show development is fantastic. Nothing happens by chance in the program, and much of it is a direct reference to the original ballet choreography and various musical ideas. The title, "re:Rite of Spring" means REGARDING Rite of Spring, as in an exploration of the various ways it has been interpreted in different manners. It's excellent stuff. That said, I love the show. It is my favorite of the season, but it doesn't make me want to scream my lungs out when it is over either. It is not that sort of production. It would be like screeching BOOOYA!!!! in the middle of a Martha Graham performance of something. Personally, the whole thing is full of so much overwhelming detail, that when it ends, I need a minute to process some of what I just experienced. But then I want to see it again, and again. I could see it 50 times and keep noticing segments that I hadn't seen the previous 49. For me, that is lasting entertainment. I'm glad not everyone does shows like BD, but I'm even more glad that they DO do them. As long as they continue to perform what they have chosen with nearly unmatched excellence, they deserve to keep winning. When someone else performs their own choice with the same excellence, they will win. That happened a lot for much of the season, and it still could these last few weeks. 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kamarag Posted July 30, 2013 Share Posted July 30, 2013 They are winning any ways just like Cadets, PR, BD and Cavs the past 10 years. Crown will win next and life will be good and everyone will move on. And if Crown is able to win a couple in a short span, the tide will turn on them quickly. This anti-BD vitriol reminds me of what the Reading Buccaneers when through a few years into The Streak. The "Anyone But Buccaneers" posts were fast and furious, if not quite as nasty (most of the time). It's a good thing DCI has never seen anything like Reading's DCA streak. The DCI forums would become a nuclear meltdown zone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skywhopper Posted July 30, 2013 Share Posted July 30, 2013 You are the one who is totally wrong. When a person is booing the placement of Crown in 2nd place, he/she is telling the BD members that they do not deserve their victory, no matter how well they performed. Okay? They can also hear it when the audience applauds less after the show is over than before it started. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
seen-it-all Posted July 30, 2013 Share Posted July 30, 2013 As the paying ticket-buyer the fans most definitely have a right to boo. However, I suggest those who feel the need to boo turn around and point to the pressbox so both the judges. If fans are booing BD's show, then why are they not boo-ed when they enter the field or, even, when their show is done? Fans boo the outcome. Their booing should be directed at the pressbox. The kids on the field had NO CHOICE in show programming. Agreed. This goes along the lines of something Granny said on one of the earlier posts. These are not kids they are young ADULTS, and if you go to work every day and drop the ball, nobody is going to pat you on the back and say good job. You're going to have to deal with the negative consequences because that's how life works. BUT...so far nobody has been able to articulate to me what exactly these specific young ADULTS in the Blue Devils will have done to "drop the ball" if they wind up winning DCI this year which deserves condemnation. I mean really, what did THEY do which deserves booing? They performed a difficult show extremely well? They busted their butts and gave their all? Of course that's not why they deserved to be booed in certain peoples' opinions. They deserve to be booed, I guess, because they marched in a corps whose design team came up with a show that those who boo don't like. How dare they?? This is why the whole concept of booing is stupid. It's completely misdirected. Boo the staff? Well, some of them are down on the edges of the field, some are in the press box, some are in the stands. That won't work. Boo the judges? Yeah, that's what they SAY they're doing, but nobody boos the press box as you suggest. And most judges, as someone pointed out, are already out the door by the time the scores are announced. So who's left? The members on the field. But we're not booing THEM, they say. Well, sorry, but you are. They're the only ones out there and you're booing the wrong people. And if it's not about BD winning, as many of them say, then why DON'T they boo them during their performance? That's the thing that has people so ticked off, the SHOW. Why NOT boo the show when it's right there in front of them? Easy. Because that would be rude. That would be disrespectful. And by and large, drum corps fans don't do that. They boo when the scores are announced because it's ALL about who wins (or who DOESN'T win). And in this case, it's ALL about BD (possibly) winning. If BD finished 6th this year, this thread wouldn't exist. Even if they still despised the show, which I'm sure they would, it wouldn't have people nearly as riled up. So if the fans can get all ticked off because BD wins, why get all bothered when BD fans and members get all cocky when they DO win? That's all anyone seems to really care about, though they probably won't admit it. Earlier, someone suggested that the best way to really get your point across to the staff if you don't like a show is to go get your hot dogs when that corps performs. Let them perform in front of a half-empty house. That's actually something I can get behind because it's far more direct in terms of articulating what the fans are supposedly displeased with, THE SHOW. We all have our hot dog corps anyway. If BD is really the corps with the show that the fans don't like, then why do they sit there and watch it? Let the fans who want to see that kind of show watch it and cheer. Go get your soft drink or go to the restroom. You'll do it anyway during some other corps or during an intermission. Make your statement that way. My guess is that deep down people would rather watch it, HATE it, and then boo when the scores are announced. That'll show 'em? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skywhopper Posted July 30, 2013 Share Posted July 30, 2013 Why would anyone boo the judges for rewarding the best corps on the field? Because they disagree that they were the best corps on the field. Or they disagree that the judges are doing their jobs correctly. It's not so clear cut as you make it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scv_chuck Posted July 30, 2013 Share Posted July 30, 2013 Well...this just isn't very practical, is it? I'm not sure 99% of people would know what Gibbs looks like. Although it does make me giggle a bit to visualize several hundred fans gathered around the Blue Devils staff bus (presuming Gibbs is on it) booing. So, below is his email address and his photo in case you see him at a show and want to personally boo him (please put it on youtube if you do). Below is a screenshot of the email I just sent. dgibbs@bluedevils.org I don't think we need to boo DG. We need to boo who/whom ever is responsible for creating the sheets that have lead these kind of shows being rewarded. Gibbs? Hopkins? Every director? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kamarag Posted July 30, 2013 Share Posted July 30, 2013 I don't think we need to boo DG. We need to boo who/whom ever is responsible for creating the sheets that have lead these kind of shows being rewarded. That's going to be a lot of booing, as it's a pretty long list of folks who had input, one way or another. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skywhopper Posted July 30, 2013 Share Posted July 30, 2013 (edited) I think for a lot of drum corps fans it's more than BD being boring. You can make an argument for a lot of Cadets shows being boring, but they've never been vilified the same way BD has been. The difference, IMHO, is that BD shows sometimes feel highly calculated, formulaic, and soulless. I know. I know. They're tremendous innovators. But there's something that feels really perfunctory and manipulative about many of their recent shows. I enjoyed 2008 as an adventure into silliness. 2009 I felt lacked a spark of some sort. There wasn't anything about it I shouldn't have liked, but it just had no life to it. 2010... was outstanding for the first few minutes and then ran off the rails, IMO. 2011 definitely felt like an exercise in drum corps compulsories. 2012 was definitely not soulless, IMO. It had a lot of character. I don't think it should have won--I clearly don't understand what the visual judges value--but it was a good show, taking 2008's absurdity one step further. This year... They have managed to strip the life out of Rite of Spring, which should feel angry and sinister and on the edge of explosion constantly. I think their committment to visual madness doesn't fit with the music which should be far more focused. Doesn't help matters in my mind that their battery feature just comes out of nowhere, with no relation to the music that's going on along with it. And they end with a unison held longer than Crown's final chord? I do not understand the music analysis category either it would seem. Edited July 30, 2013 by skywhopper 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skywhopper Posted July 30, 2013 Share Posted July 30, 2013 If BD wins I will be celebrating. I get that the crowd is not going bananas for BD, but that is not the purpose of BD's show. Crown's show is not so crowd friendly either. I was at Stanford this year and they received a very modest crowd reaction, about the same as BD actually. The only reason people are screaming for Crown (besides the fact they are in the east at the moment) is because they have the best shot at beating BD. I wasn't at Stanford, but this has not the case elsewhere. Crown's show has a ton of impacts that the crowd loves. The only corps that got the crowd on their feet faster than Crown at DeKalb and Murfreesboro was SCV. I've mentioned a few times that the crowd clapped more for BD before they started than after... they want to love the show. BD has a great reputation, particularly among the bandos and the casual fans. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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