Southern Blue Devil Posted August 18, 2015 Share Posted August 18, 2015 early to mid season... phantom 96, defiant heart...excellent musical choices. can't go wrong. 2012 blue devils...that ballad section with gymnopedies is breathtaking... 2015 blue knights...just the whole thing was amazing, emotionally 2011 phantom...can't go wrong with elsa's procession, musically...later season it got even better which is amazing 2007 blue devils...probably one of their best shows of all time, in my opinion, showed early season i was going to put 2015 crown, but sadly that show didn't really start to shine for me until around atlanta and allentown 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
N.E. Brigand Posted August 18, 2015 Share Posted August 18, 2015 Phantom Regiment 1996, Defiant Heart. June 20-something. My friends laughed at me when I claimed PR had a winning show. I believe they took third behind Cavies and Scouts that evening. The simple black uniform with the deconstructed chevron was a brilliant idea. Whether it was intentional or not, the chevron looked like the AIDS awareness ribbon. The guard in their blood red baby doll dresses popped against the stark black uniforms. it was an amazing show to watch develop over the course of the summer. I'm still impressed that they proved you didn't have to march fast to win. Love this show. I only first caught up with it a few years later, on the Brass Roots videotape, which concludes with a long montage of clips of every championship show from 1972 through 1996. That culminates with the opener from Defiant Heart, which immediately struck me as the greatest three minutes of drum corps I'd ever seen. The rest of the show is very good indeed, but for me, nothing compares to that build up. However, an acquaintance of mine, whom I know because we share an entirely different interest, works professionally as a classical music critic. He regularly reviews a major symphony orchestra and much else beside. We live in entirely different parts of the country, but after-hours one night at a conference several years ago, he got to talking about his love of Shostakovich. I described how there were these marching ensembles called drum corps who occasionally performed some of that composer's works, and that I'd try to find him some videos or get him information on a show, if there was one in his area. In fact, he lives less than five miles from one major corps' headquarters. So in the past few years, I've alerted him to the nearest contest a time or two, but each time he was busy. This year I went to extra efforts, giving him a full explanation of drum and bugle corps, and listing all the repertoires of the corps at the major show near him, and also, to my delight, when I found there was a full video of Phantom '96's show online, including that link. He politely thanked me, and said that this time, he had that evening mostly free, so he'd try to attend. But when he got there, he found the traffic so congested that he gave up and went home. I hadn't thought to warn him of that possibility. Then on his blog about a week later, describing his recent activities, he noted this failed adventure, and included the link to the Defiant Heart video in his description of what he gathered, from my email and from watching the video, drum corps was all about: "five-minute suites of fetid arrangements of, sometimes, rather esoteric modern classical music, this last fact being the sole generator of my interest." Fetid. I'll save everyone the trouble of looking it up: "smelling extremely unpleasant". That's based on watching Phantom '96. Oh, well, I guess it goes to show we all have different tastes. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NeutralNovice Posted August 18, 2015 Author Share Posted August 18, 2015 THIS past season or ANY season? sorry for such late reply... ANY season. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JAZZER Posted August 18, 2015 Share Posted August 18, 2015 Yes. I have listened to this show 100 times and every time have choked up, especially at the end. In fact I was walking through an airport listening to it, trying not to show emotion so that I wouldn't embarrass myself, which was a futile attempt. Add me to the list of moved listeners. Have also enjoyed this show triple digit listens....usually while running. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TRacer Posted August 18, 2015 Share Posted August 18, 2015 Reaching into the Days of Yore.... As far as "I feel good!" I'd have to give the nod to '81 27th Lancers...others have since tried-- and failed-- to put Crown Imperial on the field. No, it is not a thematic show by the standards of today, but the "in your face-ness" of opener and the guard work in drum solo were incredible, Then we had the jaw-dropping complexity of Don Ellis's Niner-Two on 2V G's with real flugelhorns no less, folks. Crown Imperial reached out and grabbed you from the opening sforzando, a huge build in tension, major impacts, and a lovely backfield section that allowed the four marching tympani gods to showcase their skills in a feature that IMO "made it all happen". When i marched SCV I used to listen to 2-7's recording on my Walkman (remember those?) to "get in the zone" before a show. As far as "myriad of emotions", that goes to '88 Suncoast (look it up), SCV '91 and Miss Saigon, with BK 2015 (ending left me gasping) and Crown 2013 close behind. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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