2015 Finals

[WestCoaster]

It's not about demand. The corps that has won the most arguably has the least demand every year.

Nonsense. The Blue Devils (you might as well say their name if you're going to slam them) present the most professional product, year in and year out, and the high level of demand is an integral part of it. They're just not stupid enough to allow themselves to perform poorly by making the show *too* hard to pull off. That's sort of "show business 101", and the Blue Devils understand that perfectly.

It's kind of like a great broadway show, or a smoking jazz concert, or the New York Philharmonic for that matter. None of these *professional* ensembles allows any dirt to enter into their performance, and neither should a drum corps (in the name of "a beast of a show" or otherwise). The main objective is to put out the *best* show possible. Not the "almost coulda!" but give us points anyway 'cause we really, really tried!

The Blue Devils put out the BEST show, more often than the rest. Deal with it. I'd much rather see a professional show performed flawlessly than an overly difficult show performed at a sub-par level.

[George Dixon]

Agree. We are not in a perfect world - in drum corps or anything else. Although conflict of interest is built into the situation, it is the only way we have any activity at all right now.

Hardly. These conflict of interest sponsorships represent a tiny sliver of revenue. Frankly they should have never been accepted as a sponsor.

[chaddyt]

Nonsense. The Blue Devils (you might as well say their name if you're going to slam them) present the most professional product, year in and year out, and the high level of demand is an integral part of it. They're just not stupid enough to allow themselves to perform poorly by making the show *too* hard to pull off. That's sort of "show business 101", and the Blue Devils understand that perfectly.

It's kind of like a great broadway show, or a smoking jazz concert, or the New York Philharmonic for that matter. None of these *professional* ensembles allows any dirt to enter into their performance, and neither should a drum corps (in the name of "a beast of a show" or otherwise). The main objective is to put out the *best* show possible. Not the "almost coulda!" but give us points anyway 'cause we really, really tried!

The Blue Devils put out the BEST show, more often than the rest. Deal with it. I'd much rather see a professional show performed flawlessly than an overly difficult show performed at a sub-par level.

I don't disagree with really anything you said, except that...

I do want to see shows attempted that are insane on paper. Part of what drew me to the activity was hearing and seeing things I didn't think could be done on the field. But I also don't think it should be required that every corps should attempt something they feel is beyond what they're capable of making effective.

BD does what they do extremely well, and over the past few years, I've grown to appreciate and (can't believe I'm typing this) actually LIKE what they do.

But I'm always going to want to see corps like the Cadets swing for the fences every now and then as well. They may not always connect, but when they do, it's a home run.

[c mor]

Hardly. These conflict of interest sponsorships represent a tiny sliver of revenue. Frankly they should have never been accepted as a sponsor.

Tiny enough not to matter perhaps?

[wigwam]

While we're on the topic of finals, and what we find appaling, I felt that way in Section 139 4th row, that so many people around me who were clearly fans of corps other than BD would not even clap when their corps was announced, nor would they clap when BD was announced. I understand loyalty, ####, mine probably runs overboard more often than not, but I'm still going to applaud the corps I support and those that I may not care for as much. Those members don't have control over the scores given by particular judges, or design aspects, or the fact they their organization has won so many titles, so why be bad fans.

That in my opinion was the most absurd thing Saturday night, and that's giving the fact that I believe Crown had the better show.

It was just pathetic, IMO.

I guess I'm missing something here. So they wouldn't clap when the BD performed (because they don't like the BD), and they wouldn't clap when their corps performed. So basically they never clapped for anyone. Maybe they had sores on their hands? Or perhaps they were blind and deaf?

[wigwam]

Nonsense. The Blue Devils (you might as well say their name if you're going to slam them) present the most professional product, year in and year out, and the high level of demand is an integral part of it. They're just not stupid enough to allow themselves to perform poorly by making the show *too* hard to pull off. That's sort of "show business 101", and the Blue Devils understand that perfectly.

It's kind of like a great broadway show, or a smoking jazz concert, or the New York Philharmonic for that matter. None of these *professional* ensembles allows any dirt to enter into their performance, and neither should a drum corps (in the name of "a beast of a show" or otherwise). The main objective is to put out the *best* show possible. Not the "almost coulda!" but give us points anyway 'cause we really, really tried!

The Blue Devils put out the BEST show, more often than the rest. Deal with it. I'd much rather see a professional show performed flawlessly than an overly difficult show performed at a sub-par level.

you pretty much nailed it there.

[ajlemm]

I guess I'm missing something here. So they wouldn't clap when the BD performed (because they don't like the BD), and they wouldn't clap when their corps performed. So basically they never clapped for anyone. Maybe they had sores on their hands? Or perhaps they were blind and deaf?

I think the poster was saying that, for example, fans didn't agree that Crown should be in 2nd, so their own fans didn't even clap when it was announced (which I disagree with; I heard plenty of clapping just two sections down). Edited August 11, 2015 by ajlemm

[TESB]

Nonsense. The Blue Devils (you might as well say their name if you're going to slam them) present the most professional product, year in and year out, and the high level of demand is an integral part of it. They're just not stupid enough to allow themselves to perform poorly by making the show *too* hard to pull off. That's sort of "show business 101", and the Blue Devils understand that perfectly.

It's kind of like a great broadway show, or a smoking jazz concert, or the New York Philharmonic for that matter. None of these *professional* ensembles allows any dirt to enter into their performance, and neither should a drum corps (in the name of "a beast of a show" or otherwise). The main objective is to put out the *best* show possible. Not the "almost coulda!" but give us points anyway 'cause we really, really tried!

The Blue Devils put out the BEST show, more often than the rest. Deal with it. I'd much rather see a professional show performed flawlessly than an overly difficult show performed at a sub-par level.

I don't disagree with really anything you said, except that...

I do want to see shows attempted that are insane on paper. Part of what drew me to the activity was hearing and seeing things I didn't think could be done on the field. But I also don't think it should be required that every corps should attempt something they feel is beyond what they're capable of making effective.

BD does what they do extremely well, and over the past few years, I've grown to appreciate and (can't believe I'm typing this) actually LIKE what they do.

But I'm always going to want to see corps like the Cadets swing for the fences every now and then as well. They may not always connect, but when they do, it's a home run.

Yeah, but when Cadets do grand finale fireworks for closer drill, it almost always looks pretty good. The thing is with corps like Crown and Cadets who make it a point that their show is hard, it usually looks really hard. It looks like a bunch of kids struggling to hang on to the show.

I also sometimes watch that sort of drill (BD does or doesn't use drill? I don't know for sure) and it looks like some guy on pyware thinks something looks cool on the computer, but there is such a disconnect. For example, when Crown's drill this year (and previous years) wants to do a pinwheel pattern in a block or something, every member follows that pattern except two or three groups, like the drill writer wanted to do this cool thing on pyware but "oh crap, there are like, six guys leftover that I don't know what to do with". Or the drill writer wants to do his really cool 3D drill, but especially this year, it was just so ugly and...well...thrown in there? It takes me out of it. Sometimes I think there are mistakes in the drill that they just left in there, like kids switched dots and no one noticed.

[2muchcoffeeman]

Not exactly responsive to the OP, but since it does involve performance levels at 2015 finals:

I had not-so-great seats for finals week, side 1 about 5 yard line, lower end of upper decks. My vantage was not the same vantage as the judges'. The shows were not designed to "read" from the 5 yard line; they were designed to be read from the 50. My view to the corps, for the most part, was in through the side door. But with that said:

Some of the marching that I saw was surprisingly sloppy. There were inconsistent -- wildly inconsistent -- intervals. Forms that didn't link up cleanly. Arcs with bubbles, dimples, and flat spots. Diagonals as wavy as a wet noodle. Rotating blocks where each line of marchers did it differently. Non-rotating blocks with different spacing between the files. Variations in foot placement when doing body movement, kneeling, etc. Inconsistency in the way marchers would execute sharp corners. Late horn snaps. Lumpy company fronts.

I'm not talking about the last-place corps. I'm talking about BD. SCV. Cadets. Bloo. Crown, Cavies, etc., from top to bottom, from first place to last, I saw stuff that made me shake my head.

It was not everywhere, all the time. It did not ruin what otherwise were dazzling and entertaining shows. But it was frequent enough that it was not hard to find. Some of it was so obvious that it jumped out and grabbed the eye. There was enough of it to convince me that visual precision for its own sake no longer is a prime value in drum corps. Those kids do amazing things out there, for sure. Amazing uniformity is not one of them, at least not consistently.

Edited August 11, 2015 by 2muchcoffeeman

[TESB]

Not exactly responsive to the OP, but since it does involve performance levels at 2015 finals:

I had not-so-great seats for finals week, side 1 about 5 yard line, lower end of upper decks. My vantage was not the same vantage as the judges'. The shows were not designed to "read" from the 5 yard line; they were designed to be read from the 50. My view to the corps, for the most part, was in through the side door. But with that said:

Some of the marching that I saw was surprisingly sloppy. There were inconsistent -- wildly inconsistent -- intervals. Forms that didn't link up cleanly. Arcs with bubbles, dimples, and flat spots. Diagonals as wavy as a wet noodle. Rotating blocks where each line of marchers did it differently. Non-rotating blocks with different spacing between the files. Variations in foot placement when doing body movement, kneeling, etc. Inconsistency in the way marchers would execute sharp corners. Late horn snaps. Lumpy company fronts.

I'm not talking about the last-place corps. I'm talking about BD. SCV. Cadets. Bloo. Crown, Cavies, etc., from top to bottom, from first place to last, I saw stuff that made me shake my head.

It was not everywhere, all the time. It did not ruin what otherwise were dazzling and entertaining shows. But it was frequent enough that it was not hard to find. Some of it was so obvious that it jumped out and grabbed the eye. There was enough of it to convince me that visual precision for its own sake no longer is a prime value in drum corps. Those kids do amazing things out there, for sure. Amazing uniformity is not one of them, at least not consistently.

I don't know what it's about either, I definitely noticed how much worse every corps, even the corps that won, looked in 2015