George Dixon Posted June 18, 2015 Share Posted June 18, 2015 Their guard.. Dirty is not weak. Especially this early. If they did the same stuff over and over and over like a few other corps they'd be cleaner. JMO Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cappybara Posted June 18, 2015 Share Posted June 18, 2015 Not sure where the the whole "Tilt 2" sentiment is coming from. The structure of this show is nothing like Tilt. The only similarity is heavy use of electronics. Personally I liked Tilt a lot more. It had much more dynamic nuance to it. This show is just loud the whole time basically. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fran Haring Posted June 18, 2015 Share Posted June 18, 2015 (edited) Just got home from the theater at a secret location in Maryland. OK... not really secret, but judging by the handful of people in attendance, it might as well have been. Quick thoughts.... Scouts: Show design seemed "safe"... not necessarily a bad thing. Kudos to the trombone soloist. Better visual show than last year. Then again, since last year's "no rhyme or reason" drill looked like it was written on the back of a cocktail napkin, it had to be better this year. LOL. Blue Stars: I'm a longtime fan of this corps, Including this year. Last year: Light, fun show. This year: Dark, fun show. They really need to clean up the marching execution, though. Crown: Again, an absolutely amazing horn line. I really enjoyed this show. Cavaliers: Not sure about this one. Some cool "Cavalier moments" like the "one person running, then another person, then another" segment. But overall, the jury's still out for me. Cadets: Yet another terrific visual show from the pen of Jeff Sacktig. I'm not sure if it was the audio feed on the cinecast or what was actually going on live, but it seemed that the synth output was overpowering the brass and percussion at various times. Bluecoats: No drum corps handles the use of electronics better than this corps, IMO. Some absolutely wild effects. I wonder if, years from now, this show will be seen as a game-changing production along the lines of 1976 Blue Devils, 1983-84 Cadets, 1993 Star, etc. So cool to see the added bonus of Blue Devils' Finals performance from last year!!! Best drum corps I've ever seen, in my nearly 50 years of being involved with corps in one way or another. Edited June 18, 2015 by Fran Haring 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
George Dixon Posted June 18, 2015 Share Posted June 18, 2015 Not sure where the the whole "Tilt 2" sentiment is coming from. The structure of this show is nothing like Tilt. The only similarity is heavy use of electronics. Personally I liked Tilt a lot more. It had much more dynamic nuance to it. This show is just loud the whole time basically. I'm sure they will work on balance and dynamic shaping. I saw them last year quite early, they are miles ahead of last year at this stage. This program (IMO) is much better designed than Tilt - which was a cool show with one very cool moment. After seeing it a few times I grew tired of it in some aspects... This year's program struck me as much more layered and interesting. A program which will really challenge them up until the end. A step up in maturity of design - just my impression of course. It's always interesting to see where these programs go over season. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Slingerland Posted June 18, 2015 Share Posted June 18, 2015 (edited) Placements and spreads were about right. Cadets have a very solid vehicle, love the french horn feature, the plinths seemed to be awkward additions rather than integral to the actual visual package. Sick percussion section. Bluecoats are hard to judge in this medium, since so much of what they're doing is well outside of the norms (and I mean that in a good way). On the one hand, the textures and movement of sound are awesome, on the other, if the sound is manipulated and augmented that much, is it really fair to judge it against other corps who are going with a more traditional approach? The guard disappeared for me. Tasty drum book. Crown's fabric snafus notwithstanding, the best designed 'traditional' show of the night, for me (see Bluecoats for the non-trad). Not sure about the drum score; maybe it's just because they still sounded markedly better than last year that I thought they played reasonably well. Cavaliers have bitten off a lot, brass wise. Opening fanfare was awesome, then each movement got progressively shakier, with the exception of the "Batman" piece which sounded well played, but wasn't that intriguing. IF they can figure out a way to get 2 weeks worth of obvious execution lag jammed into the next week, they have a shot of getting within 2 points of Crown. If they don't...they should start asking themselves what happened to their preseason approach, since they used to know how to open at or near the top. Maybe it was just a bad run, and they'll get it together for the weekend.Madison's show is striving to be populist, and the horn book feels comfort-food good (I mean that as a compliment), but a little less mugging from the guard and a lot more actual awesome dance work would help. If you're going to conjure Gene Kelly, you have to actually DO something that calls him to mind. Drumline seems to be taking a step back in the right direction. Blue Stars were fine, though pulling in the Sondheim piece, which, if anything, evokes American musicals (firstly) and Sweden (setting of A Little Night Music) second, seems an odd and ill-fit for a show that should be more "Nightmare Alley" (great flick; look for it). Battery huddled around the stage for 3 minutes is only a placeholder, I hope. Edited June 18, 2015 by Slingerland 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tobias Posted June 18, 2015 Share Posted June 18, 2015 Not sure where the the whole "Tilt 2" sentiment is coming from. The structure of this show is nothing like Tilt. The only similarity is heavy use of electronics. Personally I liked Tilt a lot more. It had much more dynamic nuance to it. This show is just loud the whole time basically.I liked Tilt better. The music sound bend was used and effective but the music was strong and wonderful on its own. The 2015 show is cool but so much electronics, hard to really get a feel for the brass since there's always electronic accompanying the music. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarchandPlay Posted June 18, 2015 Share Posted June 18, 2015 Wow what a night! Great start to the 2015 season for sure. Madison - Well the brass plays loud. Almost everything they play is loud. It sounds fine, but I would have liked to hear them play more in the piano range and have a few softer moments in the show. Of course it is part of the design for it to be showy, but there's always time to relax in the dynamic department. I'm not sold on the show, but it is the first show of the year.. Blue Stars - You can tell Richard Saucedo works with this corps, because they don't open up on the volume this early on, but keep it down to build tone. This show is definitely one that will take all summer to develop, very similar to how I felt about their show last year. So many kinks to work out and figuring out ways to draw the focus where it needs to be. But they certainly have the end in mind, and are in no hurry to max out the show just yet. Looking forward to see this show develop. Carolina Crown - I absolutely love the music in this show. Not all Bb major chords in this show. In fact, I didn't even notice any at all(until maybe the very end, but I'd have to listen again). Very dark, and I love dark, dissonant chords. I saw the Youtube video of them and this show is definitely a "must see in person" show. I was not impressed at all online, but in person it was a completely different experience. Brass is much improved over last year, and the show carries itself way better than last year. However, I don't know how much they can improve in the show besides the ending without changing a lot in it. Only time will tell. The Cavaliers - I was really looking forward to this show, especially after last year's brass being miles ahead of 2013's brassline. And their brass was definitely the best part of their corps tonight. Solid first half of the show all around, and I was really hoping it would go somewhere interesting. But... I have no idea what they were trying to do in the latter portion of the show. I'm not sure if I missed something, but I just kept waiting for something big to happen, and nothing ever did. Again, first show, yada yada yada... But still, I lost interest in the show about halfway through, and that was disappointing. I hope next time I see them I see something differently or they add something I was looking for, because I wanted to see them fighting with corps above them this year. The Cadets - Wow, the music is awesome in this show. They definitely know what they are doing in this show musically. Visually it was still great, many nice moments. Their high brass is very refined, almost as good as Crown's this year. The horn feature was pretty cool - it added a sound I'm not used to hearing, which was nice. Not much to complain about here - can't wait to see them again! Bluecoats - Must see in person. If you don't, you won't even begin to comprehend half of what is actually happening on the field. This show is extremely effect-driven, with so many moments of "Was that a trumpet playing, or was it the speaker". Or moments where the sound is traveling across the field, and morphs into something you wouldn't imagine... It's just a total mind/ear bending show that you finish watching and you're still wondering what you just heard. In a good way. After seeing all of the corps live tonight... It is very difficult to say where placings will be down the road, but I will give my opinion on which corps have a show that will take them far. In order of which corps I think can go the farthest with their shows this summer: Blue Stars Bluecoats The Cadets The Cavaliers Carolina Crown Madison Scouts Mind you, this isn't placements, but the Blue Stars and Bluecoats have so much depth in their shows and room to make huge strides. 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
futurebluecoat Posted June 18, 2015 Share Posted June 18, 2015 I really want a video of Bloo's show! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tim K Posted June 18, 2015 Share Posted June 18, 2015 To answer "Cube's" question, I too enjoyed Madison though I was a bit surprised they placed ahead of Blue Stars. Madison's show has some real potential, and it worked better than I thought it would and was better than what we saw on the 15th. I think their Gene Kelly needs to be more distinct. Cadets did not surprise me. I knew they would be ready and I expected them to place first. I'm not sure it will be the strongest show of the season. Bluecoats may be a bit heavy on the electronics, at least fro my taste, but last year it took some time for eth electronics to settle. The show is interesting and overall I found t0ehm to be the least jittery of the corps. Crown's show perhaps interested me the most of the evening. I loved the strength of "Dies Irae" from Verdi's Requiem. It's supposed to be performed with attitude and that's what it had this evening. Adagio in G was also beautifully performed. Dennis DeLuca did comment that Crown's percussion was vastly improved but he said the same last year. I thought Cavies has a more interesting brass book, but the show seemed to be missing something. I would also remove the vocals. It did not seem to fit an I'm not sure the young man has a strong enough voice. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cappybara Posted June 18, 2015 Share Posted June 18, 2015 I really want a video of Bloo's show! Look up user Dale Sawyer on Periscope. He has the full show still on there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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