Wrangle in Warrensburg

[DrumManTx]

Great review. Look forward to reading more of your reviews as the season progresses.

I'm doing a big one Sunday since I can't make it to a live show this year. If you like my ramblings, watch for that. Gonna try and keep it really positive.

[BlueStainGlass]

My Awards so far:

Most Innovative: Blue Coats

Best Musicianship: Crown

Most Intense: Cadets

Most Talented: Blue Devils

Most Improved: Cavaliers

Best Drill: Vanguard

Overachievers: Blue Stars/Blue Knights

Worst Use of Talent: Phantom/Scouts (although both shows have very nice moments, I just wish they had better show designs)

The top 5 groups are a real pleasure to watch, I hope it's a 5 way tie for first.

good job BK and BS for earning awards while not at the show :p

[BlueStainGlass]

Cleaned up a bit of mess mid-way through. Remember, personal attacks, intentional derailing, and trolling aren't tolerated.

Glad it's cleared up. We owe the admins 👍👏👏

Edited July 14, 2015 by BlueStainGlass

[seen-it-all]

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Edited July 14, 2015 by seen-it-all

[Yorkvillain]

good job BK and BS for earning awards while not at the show :p

Haha!

[Chief Guns]

How in Dante Inferno's name did the Blue Devils not win this show tonight. They sounded absoltely amazing.

My apologies to anyone I'm offending, but if I had to pick the Cadets or Blue Devils to showcase DCI, it would be the Blue Devils. No disrespect to the Cadets, mind you. It's just that if it was only one corps/one show between the 2 of them, it would be BD.

Tonight is just another example of judges not scoring what they see and hear when they see and hear it. Performance order still is an influencer of the overall show outcome.

BD fan here. Cadets was simply better tonight. Hopefully next matchup BD comes back and get's them. But it was Cadets tonight. And BD won last night going on first. Please explain performance order being a influencer.

Edited July 14, 2015 by Chief Guns

[seen-it-all]

I'm usually one to give judges the benefit of the doubt, but COME ON already with the sub-caption ties!!! Ridic!

[N.E. Brigand]

Gack! There's no pedestal in hell!

Isn't a flaming bright red head enough for you guys?

I did say "if". I have no problem with him being on the field. But if they return him to the sideline, there are lots of things in Dante's tale that could work as pedestals. One of the popes that Dante finds there is stuffed head first into something like a baptismal font, as I recall. Stand on that!

Edited July 14, 2015 by N.E. Brigand

[futurebluecoat]

That 1 and a half minutes between the contra/tenor feature and Woods are officially my favorite section of drum corps ever. Just total bliss for me in every aspect.

That is such an incredible moment. When they go from the looping with some soft playing over it to the BIG hit my heart melts haha. Their hornline is so good it's not even funny and they barely even sound like a hornline at that part. It's hard to describe the sound. But I completely agree. I love that part so much.

[N.E. Brigand]

I wrote my quasi-review as I went, so with apologies for redundancy, I'll just bundle the parts together here:

Cavaliers

The guard outfits don't exactly fit the stately music that opens the show. And the guard's smiling faces don't really suggest athletic determination. It would be nice to give more visual emphasis to the trombone quartet. It's hard to understand some of the "Run, Boy, Run" lyrics, but the song bothered me less tonight than it did before. The brass does have a long way to go (too strident early in the show and clearly out of breath at the end) but there are nearly four weeks left. That somersault saber catch was nice. Complaints about the concept seem silly to me: it's simply an ode to sports. I don't think they should break 80 yet, and I liked the vampire show more, but this is a solid entertainment.

Phantom Regiment

My first time getting a clear look at this show, although I've heard it more than once. The opening Eiffel Tower set is nice. I'm not sure about the opening lead guard member's hat. It seems to the be the year of little drill circles that follow the leader into or out of arcs/lines. All the French-accented female dialogue should be cut; it only detracts. The Champs street sign can probably go to; at the least play it down, since it suggests one of Velvet Knights' "Magical Mystery Tour" props more than anything else. Was that Sinatra singing "I Love Paris"? All I can think of is Meg Ryan singing "I Hate Paris" at the beginning of her comedy with Kevin Kline. (Not to mention an Ohio band last year--New Philadelphia?--that made a real hash of Sinatra.) Please drop the synth string patch from the start of "Clair de Lune". I don't object to the idea of rearranging classic works, but it has to be more memorable than this. For the first two thirds of the show, there's an awful lot of park and bark. Too bad the tubas cut out in the middle of the "American in Paris" soli: rewrite that so they play it through. I like the dance step the corps performs near the end of "American in Paris". All of the "I Love Paris" vocals except the very first one (which should be sung live) ought to be given to brass soloists: a trumpet the first time, a tuba the second time, etc. The drill in the Organ Symphony is highly effective, but what people have been saying about the organ sound is dead on. Also they need to get the various parts in that piece balanced. Still, it's the best part of the show which closes fairly well. I liked Cavs more, but I can't see this show falling below ninth.

Blue Devils

I hadn't seen or heard this show at all before tonight. Read lots about it here, of course. What a delight! There does seem to be a bit of a story, and I'm not sure what it all means, but I don't really care. Wasn't sure what the ticking sound was at first, then realized it must be a typewriter. It would be nice if they actually had a real typewriter that was miked, rather than just a synthesizer; do they? The snares on the ladder contraptions at the top are cool. Are the corps members, who started lying in various odd poses on the ground, supposed to be waking up? Was I actually hearing BD's tubas? (How often does that happen?) The AbC and XYZ are cute. When the C in AbC dissolves, is BD playing in Ab?* A friend of mine grumbled about Meryl Streep being "Streepy" in her portrayal of the Into the Woods witch; note to BD guard member: don't be Streepy. The running corps members chasing the witch run in an impressively expressive manner; liked that a lot. I couldn't tell at first what the slipper was, but it may have been the fault of where the camera had been pointing me before. They're very good, but there are still plenty of flaws in alignment, whether it's props or feet. Would anyone know that the K-Pop section was in fact K-Pop if we weren't told? I certainly don't recognize the language. It's a fun little section, though I do wish it were sung live, and it may go on too long--and the synth carries too much weight after the vocals conclude. Overall, the field is pretty cluttered, certainly more so than Crown last year, about which so many people complained. The left side drill that moves to the left goalline and front sideline is very nice, not to mention the way the get out of the corner into which they've painted themselves. The brass slackens a bit in the last minute or so. But again, a wonderful show that certainly deserves to contend with Bluecoats, Crown, and Cadets for the top. (And maybe SCV, too, but I haven't seen their show yet.)

*Anybody else flash to Good Morning, Vietnam for a moment? "Excuse me, sir. Seeing as the V.P. is such a V.I.P., shouldn't we keep the P.C. on the Q.T., 'cause if it leaks to the V.C., he could end an M.I.A., and then we'd all be put on the K.P."

Bluecoats

Until the ballad started, they were better than BD. Then they lost their way for a while. It's like the soloist's frack shook them up. Anyway, the opening pose by the corps members would fit the Cavs' show. In context, I love those guard outfits. What a great sound in the opener; Bloo's brass has grown so distinctive over the past five years or so. The first transition in the opener isn't quite where it should be. Throughout the show, their multiphonic effects even without considering the nifty electronic work is great. Love, love, love their tuba parts. Their electronic effects remind me of what one critic said about how the movie Shakespeare in Love played with the facts: it was so smart it could afford to have fun. It was pretty cool how the ballad gets soft enough that you can actually hear the calls of the nighthawks flying overhead. Maybe Bloo should incorporate that sound into their performance. That said, the ballad felt a trifle rushed. Whose voice is it in the next transition discussing "frames of reference"? Couldn't a corps member do that part? Are the silver D guard props too hard to see? But man, all that slo-mo one-legged work is great. Love this show.

Cadets

I hate to sound like a particularly haranguing DCP contributor, but this would be a better show if they dropped most of the "10" references. I've never believed that shows need titles or themes; "Juxtaperformance" is one of my favorite shows. Right now, I think many fans' initial reaction to this show will be, "What does all this angry music have to do with the number 10?" It was certainly not a favorite of the four people I took to Akron, who were very confused that it beat Crown and Blue Stars. Now, I can say for sure that it deserves at least second place tonight (of the shows I've seen so far), but I get where they're coming from. It does get better as it goes. The boxes still look terrible. They're never going to "blend in" with the field, so make them some other color. They were moved much more effectively tonight, especially setting up for the horns, than they were in Indianapolis or Akron. Any guard standing in an X pose needs to make sure his or her legs are sufficiently spread to match the arms. The introduction feels too formulaic somehow, and then much of the opener too frantic. It needs more emotional variety. (Believe it or not, I got more of that from Cadets' "Toy So(u)ldier", another show that could have dispensed with its nominal theme.) The slow crescendo shortly before the ballad is great, though. Not sure what the battery is doing in slow motion during the ballad, but it's nice they're doing something. I want more from the soloist at the top of the waltz. And what's his slow turn about? Does this show remind anyone else of SCV's "Bartok"? The T E N form still feels cheesy--BD's letters, by contrast, are more organic--but the drill they've added after that, which I'd not seen before, is pretty good. I guess what I'm feeling is that "10" seems such an arbitrary concept. And indeed, even in the real world, as it were, it is arbitrary. The number ten only matters to us because that's how many fingers we have. And yet I don't see any reference to fingers in the show. All that said, as I mentioned earlier, this show deserves its high marks due to the incredible proficiency, and it does get better as it goes.

Carolina Crown

No duts in the opener, please! it ruins the silence between those brass hits. The black "Abandon All Hope" banner appeared to be cut off at right. And didn't there used to be a bunch of tosses as the members were revealed under the banner? Did they not do that tonight? Clean the prism! The drum break still feels long, which means to me that it's not interesting enough. However, the visuals might help, if the camera showed them. The first hit of the Verdi seemed a touch off. I love their swaying leg drill move in that number. The sit-and-turn routine reminds me of Cavaliers' "Spin Cycle", in a good way. What on earth is this school's red logo? It works pretty well with this show. Crown's brass book is just incredible. The guard is doing all sorts of crazy stuff just before the ballad. One of those tosses took forever to come down. The synthesizer at the start of the ballad seemed slightly off tonight. A tiny error as the flugel soloist began might have been a microphone issue; I couldn't tell. The red scrim section remains wonderful, and that's with the brass clearly having room to grow. As many have said, the transition to the finale seems unmotivated, even as pure concert music, but they do play it great. I see they've changed the ending some, albeit probably not for the last time. Earlier in the season, they emphasized one last moment of musical darkness before resolving more than they did tonight. They should bring back some version of that--ask me about the goblins in Howards End.

Santa Clara Vanguard

As with the Blue Devils, this is my first time seeing or hearing this show. I found that it improved as it went. For a while, it seemed like the weakest of the top five, but about two-thirds of the way through, it got really good, so much that I know I need a second viewing soon. As someone else said recently, the Tesla coil pillars move very smoothly, so that you almost never notice it--except for that moment when one of them was late getting to the back. The introduction where the corps moves smoothly and quickly to the pit feels a trifle underdone; something more is needed there, though I'm not sure what. Please cut down on the synth after the first big hit. The series of miked trumpets was a cool effect. The various suggestions of coils and electricity in the drill are quite nice. The theremin is great! But the camera focused far too long on it, depriving me of the big picture. The battery playing on drums held by the guard needs more visual crispness. It was amusing to see people in the building behind watching the field. I could hear someone counting at the end of the "Pure Imagination" bari solo: quieter please. That crazy drill in the block towards the end is just great. Certainly not a show that could place lower than fifth, but as I said at the top, I need another read to even guess as to how high it could go.

The scoring tonight seems fairly reasonable. I'd have Cavs slightly lower, perhaps, and Bloo, Crown, and SCV slightly higher, but the order is fine. With the caveat that this was my first read on the West Coast corps, I believe any of the top five is of championship caliber. Upcoming adjustments by any group could shift the order pretty easily, in my opinion.

The show I now like most, and believe to have the greatest potential, is "Kinetic Noise", which has overtaken "Inferno" for me. Right now my third favorite is "Ink", followed by "The Power of 10", "The Spark of Invention", and then some distance back, "Game On" and "City of Light" fairly close together. Of these seven, I mean. Haven't seen "Because . . ." yet, and haven't seen "78th & Madison", "Side Show", "Wild Horses", or "Conquest" since the first week. None of the last four could catch the top five, I'm sure, but depending on how they've improved, one or two could go as high as seventh. But with these comments especially, I begin to blur the line between my own tastes and those of the judges.