The Cadets - 2014

[MikeRapp]

kids know better than to put alot of stock into what you read on the internet. Smarter than we were BITD

I'm not saying the kids "put a lot of stock" into what is said here, but I guarantee you 100% of them read it.

[Sideways]

There just isn't anymore cheese. Anywhere. I agree with you. Design is developed in November, they're now in autopilot and it's purely performance level by the kids which will determine score/placement.

Sorry Mr. Hopkins, there is no more cheese. You have eaten it all!!!

[George Dixon]

Last time I checked the Cadets are sitting in the Silver medal position behind a BD corps no one is going to beat this year

It's doubtful any of us could design & teach a show to do the same!

Personally I would take things in a slightly different direction on one or two items - but in general, wow: great drill, great horn and drum books & great guard work/staging!!

We are sitting here quibbling over some plastic panels and a scrim at the end of the show. If they get negative feedback they'll be removed, it's as simple as that

Congrats Cadets on a great season!

George.

[GUARDLING]

Sorry, you need to read your history, and read today's history being made. We're so good at forgetting.

Politics, patriotism, nationalism, and militarism have been intimately entwined in the US since it became an imperialist power on the international stage in the late 19th century. And well before that too, since before the founding of the country, we were imperialists, as we also forget that we used military might to commit genocide and ethnically cleanse hundreds of tribes of indigenous people as we colonized this continent? Why do you think people like Mark Twain started the Anti-Imperialist League in 1898 - to oppose imperialist wars like the Spanish American War (sold on a lie, and in which the US invaded and annexed the Philippines, in a war that killed between 200,000 and 600,000 civilians, including massacres of entire villages)?

Why do you think a Marine Major General like Smedley Butler - two-time Congressional Medal of Honor winner and the most decorated soldier in US history, but whom you'll not find in high school history books - wrote pamphlets like "War is a Racket" (watch this video reading of excerpts here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3_EXqJ8f-0

Speaking of Central America, do you also know what the US, through the CIA and military, was up to in that region during the 80s, under the administration of one of the presidents quoted in the Cadets' show? Look it up. But most people won't, and probably just want to pretend it didn't happen, and just remember Reagan's pretty words written by his speechwriters.

I'm not injecting politics into DCI and DCP, even though the censors here busily try to pretend I and others are doing so. (Let's not be Orwellian and allow free speech here. Thank you.) The Cadets design team are. They're forcing politics and politicians and propaganda and patriotism into art, and taking words and images out of any context whatsoever, and that deeply disturbs me. It also ultimately never works as high art, which is why, even though the Cadets are no less skilled to a person than the Blue Devils, that they're getting convincingly beaten in every caption. Blue Devils are doing high art - no message other than "this is beautiful" and "this is true". Bravo, Devs.

What the Cadets design team fails - repeatedly - to understand is that you simply can't wave the flag or hoist pictures of the capitol building and quote politicians and not simultaneously carry the baggage and the real, and often tragic HISTORY that accompanies it. You can't ignore the fact that most of the rest of the world sees that flag very differently, rightly so, as we directly conduct war or proxy wars while civilians are targeted with drones or artillery or F-16s and all in the name of "freedom".

Since DCI is a kids activity, how "free", exactly, are the kids who have been dying this summer, while the Cadets are on tour, at the hands of US drones in Afghanistan or Pakistan, or taxpayer-funded F-16s and US made artillery and shells in Gaza, and now, even as I write this, who may die as we begin to bomb, yet again, Iraq, which is no longer a functioning country after our invasion, and which, besides the hundreds of thousands of killed and wounded on all sides, will cost us between $4-6 TRILLION dollars (http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/study-iraq-afghan-war-costs-to-top-4-trillion/2013/03/28/b82a5dce-97ed-11e2-814b-063623d80a60_story.html)

That's a lot of bake sales and bingo nights for books or band uniforms.

If the Cadets would have stressed Copland's truer and more artistic - and wordless, musical nature, in his Fanfare for the Common Man, Appalachian Spring, Tender Land - which glorifies the real civic beliefs and sacrifice of regular americans, and let that understatement and more abstract storytelling rule the day, the design would have worked better. It would have been more true to Copland's music, and to the message about democracy, freedom, justice, and civic responsibility, that I'm sure the Cadets team, and all fans, me included, believe in so profoundly.

omg...lmao.....it's an 11 min show...yeah why not do a show about the Boston Bombing with bodies all over rather than the rise of the human spirit of those involved in Boston. Make a hell of a show.

You points about what has , or had happned in the world may not be wrong BUT are you kidding. enough said....enjoy Im sure there are other corps to watch, everyone needs a bathroom or food break

[chaddyt]

Sitting in the stadium, I literally had to bow my head because I was laughing out loud at the end of the Cadets show and didn't want anyone to see me. That was one of the worst things I've seen in drum corps. The Cadets are usually such a class act and to force that mess on the fans was scraping the bottom of the barrel for a fan reaction.

Pathetic!

Mr. Hopkins, if you're reading this...it's not too late! Get rid of it all.

That's the other thing that bothers me, because I'm sure you're not the only one with that reaction.

To have these kids work their tails off on this show (and succeed!!) only to have this schlock explode all over the field in the closing moments does the members a disservice, IMO. It takes away an audience reaction that should be appreciative and exuberant, and replaces it with head-shaking laughter.

[GUARDLING]

I'm not saying the kids "put a lot of stock" into what is said here, but I guarantee you 100% of them read it.

that would be wrong...many corps discourage it. Its a topic right from audition camps. If some do , and some do for sure, it is met with a chuckle in most cases and some corps even have DCP night on the busses ( quite funny ) although many of the star attractions here havent been around much this summer

[George Dixon]

I think DCI needs a new category:

Open Class

World Class

Kitchen Sink Class

This will let Hop do his thing and allow the rest of us to enjoy what little tradition is left in drum corps.

lol - compared to a few other top corps this year I hardly think Hop is alone in the "kitchen sink" class

Cadets program is amazingly focused (with the exception of the ending) - there are others where you have zero idea where to look or listen

[GUARDLING]

Last time I checked the Cadets are sitting in the Silver medal position behind a BD corps no one is going to beat this year

It's doubtful any of us could design & teach a show to do the same!

Personally I would take things in a slightly different direction on one or two items - but in general, wow: great drill, great horn and drum books & great guard work/staging!!

We are sitting here quibbling over some plastic panels and a scrim at the end of the show. If they get negative feedback they'll be removed, it's as simple as that

Congrats Cadets on a great season!

George.

AMEN!

[MikeRapp]

Sitting in the stadium, I literally had to bow my head because I was laughing out loud at the end of the Cadets show and didn't want anyone to see me. That was one of the worst things I've seen in drum corps. The Cadets are usually such a class act and to force that mess on the fans was scraping the bottom of the barrel for a fan reaction.

Pathetic!

Mr. Hopkins, if you're reading this...it's not too late! Get rid of it all.

Well, we also see last year's world champion using trampolines on the field. For all the talk of trombones and narration, it would seem that the Cadets did Crown a favor by becoming the hot button topic.

I am all for patriotism. Though it didn't score great, the Scouts' 9/11 show was incredible and got a massive fan following. Their closing continues to be considered by many as one of the greatest DCI closers ever.

It's really less about "patriotism" to me and far more about ham-handedness in design. The huge stage is such a bizarre distraction, the narrator just comes off like a PBS documentary (again, not his fault, he is reading the script), and the big tarps are just not elegant in any way. For a Corps that has always majored in traditional elegance, this show just comes off as bizarre because it is so heavy-handed. It seems to trust their (phenomenal) talent so little.

To me, the Cadets should be doing shows like Frameworks. Maybe they reacted to Crown's momentum and felt they had to do a show that would keep today's kids interested.

One last thing. I doubt few Americans put "the promise of America" in the same sentence as presidents. The promise of America is the middle class, the American dream, and main street. Trying to wave the banner of Americanism by focusing on presidents (and then clearly figuring this out late and sticking big pictures of people no one knows on the field at the very end of the season) was just a miss from a general show direction standpoint.

Where "...that one second" wins is by making an emotional connection with fans. The Cadets show, honestly, just does not make that emotional connection because they dragged mostly dead and in some cases very divisive public figures into a presentation of Americanism, and most people just don't see government as a part of the American promise.

[zigzigZAG]

omg...lmao.....it's an 11 min show...yeah why not do a show about the Boston Bombing with bodies all over rather than the rise of the human spirit of those involved in Boston. Make a hell of a show.

You points about what has , or had happned in the world may not be wrong BUT are you kidding. enough said....enjoy Im sure there are other corps to watch, everyone needs a bathroom or food break

You miss my point. I'm saying that this show can't, won't, and doesn't work because it tries to be patriotic without any context.

So what do you do - don't quote politicians and put up huge tarps.

My point is easy - LEAVE POLITICS AND PROPAGANDA OUT OF DRUM CORPS.

If the Cadets staff would have made a better decision in November, maybe by stressing regular americans, middle class, civic leaders, etc., - then they wouldn't be jumping the shark now and we wouldn't be discussing the unavoidable militaristic associations of such over-the-top patriotism and wartime quotes from politicians who expanded US imperialism unapologetically over the century.