Someone please explain e=mc^2 to me, because I really don't like/g

[MotorCityMusician]

Reading a few comments i have to ask. So its ok to have to look up information about the show (poem and music) to understand it but when BD does a show about Dada and people have to look it up its a terrible show? I swear all last year people said they dont want to research and look up a show to get it but now Crown did the same thing its fine and dandy? My opinion i didnt get the show and didnt care for it. I liked SCV the most in the top 5 wish that it won.

[MikeD]

This is the problem, as I see it, of the new version of DCI. Why should there be a requirement to get a deep cerebral education in order to be engaged with many of the DCI shows today?

There isn't any such requriement, so you are fine.

[garfield]

DCI does need clearer goals. They want to fill huge stadiums, but they also keep offering new ways to watch the shows in the comfort of my home. Live broadcasts on the Fan Network are cannibalising their sales. Yeah, they get the money from the subscription, but then I can take that live feed, hook it up to a big tv and sweet speakers and boom. 10 people can watch the shows all at once, with only one person paying for it. Those are 9 tickets they lost out on, probably a couple hundred dollars if we're considering finals. And that adds up real quick. Pretty soon, DCI is gonna find that the stadiums don't want to host their events because it isn't profitable to them. Or, even worse, DCI isn't going to be able to afford it. That's one way DCI is killing itself.

I doubt this will prove to be the case. While it is true that those other nine unpaid viewers are "potential" lost income to DCI, it probably more likely that the 1 paid purchase is accretive and the other nine wouldn't have paid DCI anything anyway. And what you're really saying is that DCI should come up with some metric to prevent people from "cheating the system" by preventing someone from leveraging off of one paid purchase to entertain 9 friends. In other words, DCI should become the "Honor System" police, right?

A "couple hundred dollars if we're considering finals"? That's probably way undershooting the cost of finals, but I think it likely doesn't matter. Lot's of people watch the Super Bowl and never pay for it.

I've spent 25 years building a audio/video system that as closely as possible replicates being in the stadium (the majority of the cost went into the audio) and, I'd be willing to bet that there are few A/V setups less than $100m that can so precisely duplicate the experience of being in the stands, right down to being able to pick the seat I want to sit in and automatically adjusting the "reverb" setting to exactly match what I'd hear from that seat. I've spared little expense, time, or expertise in attaining that goal of my hobby.

But, as sweet as it is, it still comes nothing close to the experience of actually being in the stands. The Super Bowl is still a sell-out every year, even though I watch it for free in my underwear.

[MikeD]

Get ivory tower high brow educational academic types out of the way, place working professional musicians and entertainers into the corps design positions, and DCI will be vastly different.

There would be a lot more electronics, guitars, and singing, IMO...as well as dancing, and more costuming as opposed to uniforms. If that is what you wish, OK. It actually sounds good to me.

[garfield]

(To me , at least) Crown's show was not about Einstein per se. Nor was it about relativity, physics or math.

It was "let's crack open Einstein's brain and peek at what sort of things are flying around in there".

Shockingly enough -- this is exactly what Einstein on the Beach seems to be.

If you learn just a little about Einstein, the love story makes TOTAL sense. His views on love vs. the rest of the human experience are well documented (as is his .. umm .. personal track record in the love department).

If you *really* want to "get" Crown's show, watch the first 10 minutes of this. Phillip Glass and Robert Wilson explain it far better than anyone else.

"we had taken a person and made it the subject of the piece. in a certain way, the person

replaces the idea of plot. in other words the character of the person is what piece is about."

--- P Glass

"it's not a historical representation of einstein, it's a poetical work about einstein."

--- R Wilson

Finally -- I'll just restate again: IMHO you don't need to "get" Crown's show at all to enjoy it at face value. It's perfectly good drum corps *without* the need to "get it" at all.

Spot on. And this is what leads me to believe that the focal interplay Crown was going for was, in fact, Einstein's (and our) lack of logical explanation of love.

And, darn right, even if there's no deeper meaning to a viewer, the show itself and by itself was a marvel to watch. Going no deeper than that is still pretty great, IMO.

[Stu]

The Super Bowl is still a sell-out every year, even though I watch it for free in my underwear.

Thanks for sharing that image; I will now forever have it in my brain as I watch the Super Bowl.

[garfield]

Reading a few comments i have to ask. So its ok to have to look up information about the show (poem and music) to understand it but when BD does a show about Dada and people have to look it up its a terrible show? I swear all last year people said they dont want to research and look up a show to get it but now Crown did the same thing its fine and dandy? My opinion i didnt get the show and didnt care for it. I liked SCV the most in the top 5 wish that it won.

How does one explain that, even without research, Crown's show made sense to me the first time I saw it (and only got better after learning more about EOTB), where BD's show made no sense to me UNTIL and UNLESS I took the time to research it even after seeing it multiple times?

[BRASSO]

Most shows, in fact, DON'T have a clear story line. Why does this one have to have one?

.

I do find that quite a few fans have been able to accept that a Theme in Drum Corps can be incoherent and not understood with the rational and logical mind. That its ok to ignore any attempt at understanding the Theme of the show and to suspend intellect and just enjoy the spectacle from an emotional standpoint. It works for these fans, and whatever works for them to allow them to more fully enjoy the show seems fine. It does make me a little jealous though. I'm still of the mindset that I want to understand the storyline in a Performing Arts performance. But then thats my thing to try and work on. Hopefully, some day I can just ignore the Themes and just enjoy the spectacle thats before me as others have satisfactorily been able to arrive at these days. I'm a work in progress. I can get there... I think.

[euponitone]

How does one explain that, even without research, Crown's show made sense to me the first time I saw it (and only got better after learning more about EOTB), where BD's show made no sense to me UNTIL and UNLESS I took the time to research it even after seeing it multiple times?

Exactly. I Did research BDs show this year (watched their show design videos), whereas I did no research on crowns show, other than what i've read here. Crowns show still made more sense to me (not that I disliked BD either). On top of that, if you showed those 2 performances to someone you grabbed off the street in indy, i would bet they felt the same way. Again, i did like BD's show, but implying that Crown is at the same level as them in terms of "WTF show design" is just...wrong.

Edited August 30, 2013 by euponitone

[MikeD]

But, as sweet as it is, it still comes nothing close to the experience of actually being in the stands. The Super Bowl is still a sell-out every year, even though I watch it ... in my underwear.

Hmmm...what row and seat, so I know to purchase seats in a different part of the stadium. :tongue:/>