DCI Arkansas - Little Rock, AR

[icecubeguy]

Clearly those MS scores were 2 points inflated so clearly BD & Cadets are now tied. lol

My thoughts - that's the ticket

[wesleyrp]

Hey lost in all this.... BK was 2 tenths away from Crown tonight in 3 separate captions.... 2.85 behind the defending champs. Now I know BK is not going to catch Crown, but nonetheless that's awesome for BK to be less than 3 pts back of such an amazing corps

[baristeve]

Coats brass is great they just have random lead Bari stick outs and some inconsistent releases... I want to kill whoever that lead Bari is!!! Who am I to talk tho I always got called out for sticking out.. Good thing I was euph and it wasn't quite as noticeable.. :)

[tim_brandt]

If BD or Cadets win by taking GE, these sheets are f'ed...

Congrats on all corps, sounds like everyone had fun tonight, and even got a slip 'n slide in to boot.

I think they'll get it right come finals night. Couple weeks left.

[tim_brandt]

It's happening, folks. Don't fight it. You know you want some bloo w/ your gold.

Matthew Cuellar ‏@M_Cuellar30 6m

Something is seriously wrong with DCI because @Bluecoats deserve to be fighting for 1st not @TheCadets! Tilt was more of a crowd favorite!

Jªÿ ©h¡Þmªñ ‏@JayChipman 39m

What can I say? @Bluecoats !! Wow!! Favorite show yet! #DCI2014

Leah ‏@lee_uhhburr 41m

@Bluecoats, this years show. Woah. That was awesome!

Drewby✌ ‏@dbranham97 41m

Bluecoats got me feelin some type of way #DCI

Casey Carroll ‏@CaseyCarroll 41m

WOW. #dciarkansas @DCI #bluecoats

D. Mark Newman ‏@dmarknewman 44m

Bluecoats just bent a note until it broke. Everyone. Most amazing thing I've witnessed in ages.

Smexxy Band Geek ‏@SmexxyBandGeeks 50m

@drumcorpspat the reason my wrist broke was because the bones tilted... if that's not a Bluecoats sign, I don't know what is

Stephan Burton ‏@stephan_burton 54m

OUTSTANDING dynamics, Bluecoats!!! #canwehearfirstplace?

[Gloryah]

To be honest, I'd rather see some "blue" knights with my gold, but that's not going to happen either.

[boxingfred]

1 BD is BD. As long as the judges like them they're fine.

2 Cadets need a few more big Drum Corps moments in their show. ( I just saw video of their show. They are adding more Drum Corps moments!)

3 Bluecoats need to clean and fix one transition between songs. Otherwise very entertaining! The ending after the note bend is anti climatic.

4 Crown needs to get four little gymnast from Ft Mill Gymnastic School To bounce on those trampolines during the high points in their show to show true weightlessness and flight! Shorten the drum feature. They got all the right pieces, they just have to figure out the puzzle.

5 SCV Clean, Clean and Clean!

6 Cavies I'm just glad you're back in top 6! Keep going!

Edited July 24, 2014 by boxingfred

[Citizen-Seth]

What a wet night it was . . . very glad the show didn't get rained out, but I remember hating rain delays almost as much as cancellations (if not worse) when I marched. Something about getting into performance mode, then getting out of it during the wait that always made for a rough show, and I felt like many of the corps tonight had the same issue.

I got stuck under the stands during Seattle's show, which was unfortunate because their opener of Summer Time/Fire Bird one of my favorites of the year.

Made it to my seat in time to see Academy, and they had a great run. Their guard suffered some from wet equipment, and, I'm sure, from an abbreviated warm up. Probably my favorite show from them since their Left of Spring show a few years back. During the percussion feature, theres a great flag feature that was as affective as anything else on the field the whole night.

I don't think I've seen Oregon perform since I was marching Div 2 in 2004, so obviously things have changed. Can't say that I enjoyed their show as much as Academy, and their guard seemed to be struggling even more so than the ones before them. I'm honestly not sure if the ballad was supposed to be one giant ripple. Those feather flags were so heavy from water some of the smaller members had difficulty achieving the work. During the percussion feature, when the audience suddenly finds twenty-odd (cardboard?) eyeballs staring back at them, you just have to wonder what the design team was thinking. Surely they could have found something better to put in their hands.

Crossmen were on next and marked a big step up in quality. I wish I hadn't missed them in Dallas. They had a great show with fun music and, as a whole, some of the most solid weapon catches of the night. I think I only counted one drop, which may have been the least from any corps.

Fearing rain tonight, I went out to watch BAC rehearse last night. I watched them rep chunks of the opener, and I was glad to see the changes that were made yesterday look seamless tonight. I don't think I really realized, however, hard their show is. Not only is the equipment work difficult (check of the flagline in the opener), but the drill itself is one of the hardest of any gaurd's this season. There were several drops tonight, and I wonder if that is due to wet equipment or to poor sight lines from the masks. Personally, I would lose them about half way through (or when the uniform change happens), but they are an excellent effect at the beginning of the show - they look down right creepy.

BK followed up their show in Dallas with another solid run. Now that I know the orange things are the hands of a clock, they make a lot more sense. 3 of the prism shaped props broke on the field, not sure if that's from being incorrectly assembled or from actual structural failure. I think their guard is a little over scored in the content department. I would have them tied or just under Boston.

Bluecoats were on next, and the most obvious thing was that they chose not to use the tarp. Maybe there had just been too much slipping and sliding this afternoon to trot it back out again. Then, when the show began, something was just...off. i couldn't put my finger on it under the big opening hit: they weren't using the props. They were on the field, but in the opening moments of the show, the brass ran around them instead of over them, and the guard was doing work beside the prop instead of on it. . . sometimes. There were several times when the guard was inconsistant in their interaction with the props. You could have two props next to each other, one with a member on it and one with a member beside it. It looked as though they hadn't been given clear instruction, or had been told to do what they felt comfortable with in the moment. Either way, I found it distracting, and personally, I think I would have just told them to stay off the props all together. At the beginning of the ballad when there is a guard member of holding on to the highest corner of the propped up triangle, several members slid down the side. At the end when they are supposed to run up and jump off, only one person was able to actually make it up their triangle. The rest just mimed and jumped from the ground. Maybe I'm thinking this because I've seen the show the way it's supposed to be performed, but it just wasn't as interesting without the props fully integrated. The guard work became less affective and it was a big drain on overall effectiveness of the show. On the plus side, they're using a different silk in the opener from the one they used in Dallas. The change is slight (fade is now red to yellow instead of yellow to red with blue and white stripes instead of just white), but it made the work so much more readable and impactful. Silk design matters more than you'd think. Over all, a good show given the rain delay, but not the kind of performance that earns a medal.

Cadets were next and they, as usual, were excellent. The guard fought through to have a stellar show. I only counted a single drop. The Bill Clinton flag got a few chuckles from the people around me. During the FDR section one of the dancers slipped making her way up the ramp to the stage, and in the same section, where the dancer typically jumps into the soloist's arms, she actually slipped on the metals and slid into him.

Crown was on last, and the were the only corps (other than Xmen) to get much of a crowd reaction while coming onto the field. In my review of the Dallas show, I was hard on the guard for some careless errors. As a whole, they were much better, (minus someone starting the opening hit a count early). The issues with this performance were all musical. When the first turned the speakers on a horrible screeching sound filled the stadium. They tried 4 more times to get the speakers to work, but it just wasn't happening for them. Eventually they started without them, and the singers were singing unamplified in a 55k person stadium, to surprisingly nice results. The crowd was dead silent and the guard/corps' dance was actually even more impressive in the near silence. During the actual liftoff section, I was shocked to hear all the extra drums and gongs spread across the field. In Dallas, I guess I had heard the sound, but because there was so much synth on top of it, I wasn't able to really discern what was what; a great affect over all. It was really interesting hearing the actual music of the show on its own . . . I liked it a lot more tonight than in Dallas. Maybe the music just has too many bells and whistles for my taste. There was another section of the show that was really affected by the lack of amplification, but it's escaped me what it was. Either way, good on them for powering through and good on the guard for a good show. Those ballad silks have to be some of the best looking flags of the summer.

[theCHEZman]

Hey lost in all this.... BK was 2 tenths away from Crown tonight in 3 separate captions.... 2.85 behind the defending champs. Now I know BK is not going to catch Crown, but nonetheless that's awesome for BK to be less than 3 pts back of such an amazing corps

It's a great achievement for BK and they and their alumni should be very proud.

[icecubeguy]

Props are like electronics with regards to weather decisions. If you have drill and work on the props and then the weather makes them usable for safety reasons (the design of the show actually requires them for drill and effect that adds to addressing a higher level of texturing than 2D drill thus adding to the increased responsibility and composition number.....) it's going to effect the GE when that layering is not used. (The thing that frustrates me with VA sheets is the fact that the Coats performers not only change the texture from a 2D perspective-drill and body appropriate to the TILT theme - but also a 3D level perspective. They physically change essentially the field surface adding another dimension to the performing surface. Check out high camera San Antonio.

Several things I noticed observed last night-

- coats show uses the wedges through the show normally and as a result the conditions - slippery surface on wedges and a bit on the field for foot work prep to get on the field...... It rightfully should have been reflected in the sheets

- the on eras was Lso true - weather did not effect the cadets drill at all. There is not a spot in their show where the entire corps at some point was on the stage. The drill does not take any great leaps this year with regards to velocity of footwork - the weather could not effect their show or others for that manner - their cleanliness is great and entertaining but with the GE sheets this year I feel it will max soon. Especially because their stage does not move and a tiny amount of kids are using that stage effectively. The narrator is fine but even his drill visual responsibility should be viewed and not ignored (that will be a cut and past response - I know) I say that because years ago in USBANDS GH said the same thing to a band at one of their shows when the announcer kept announcing from the same area....(from a smaller stage) So.......

Crown drill did and does not really on props to work. Their different texturing is similar to Cadets - static non moving props. Always located in the same area.

- BK sneaking up.....

- maybe BD number was correct ?!? Because the weather did not expose the simplicity or complexity of shows. Simplicity if the weather did not hurt a drill. Complexity because a show could not be performed because of the weather.

And after all of that...IMO...the audience was still "involved" more in the TILT than any other show - so the GE is still supposed to credit that - that is one reason why GE#1 is toouch of a spread. Almost like anted to call the caption kind of spread.

George oliviero still judging ?