Blue Devils 2016

[cowtown]

Oh my! I agree that the silks spinning on the panels are too busy, but since this feature is fairly recent, I'm hoping (and expect) they will change them by the end of the season. They are too good to not be aware of the issue. It's way less sloppy than the first time they attempted it. It is also very tough, as if their planes (spinning blind through the fabric) get off even slightly, the pole hits the prop and they either lose time or drop the whole thing. Not easy.

They start out with the boat in rough seas and it ends in smooth and joyous seas. It is crude-looking up close, but the general shape is fairly period-accurate. The whole show is stylized. They didn't wear reeboks in the time of Shakespeare...

Rest of the post...MEOW. You don't like them or their style. We get it. Whew.

so we agree

They go to the effort to set up and then teach the effect and then stomp all over it with poorly designed fabric upon fabric. It’s not characteristic for BD at all, it seems really sloppy from them but I do see bits of that through-out this show. I expect they’ll fix it too but I have to go with what was on the field when I saw it

so when you say with regards to their boat "general shape is fairly period-accurate" you mean it's boat shaped?

well, yeah, it is boat shaped but it looks like it has a smoke stack on it too

But thanks for at least addressing a few of my concerns with the shows

I said they have the weakest designed of the current top 3, didn’t say they won’t win. I also pointed out just a few of what I think are obvious design flaws, only Naked Eye was thoughtful enough to offer an opinion, rebuttal. As another poster mentioned, basis make it almost impossible to discuss shows here in any critical fashion but GE really isn’t that difficult to get or understand, the part that’s most subjective is to the degree it’s rewarded with in the parameters of the numbers on the sheets.

this show is a bit too familiar and love it or hate it ( I tend to hate it) DCI rewards new, there is nothing new in this show.

I don’t hate or love this show, it’s just there. Music is thin outside the ballad and the main theme, it reminds me of 2006, a show I liked but felt like it ran out of music.

[Cappybara]

Take all three shows...BD, Bluecoats and Crown. All three executed well on finals night....and BD is third based on a stale design concept. What saved them last year was execution. I am not even sure that could do it this year. Just sayin...and I certainly could be wrong.

Where on the sheets is "stale design" mentioned?

[Cappybara]

Where did I say they should lead in the direction of the current changes? Quite the contrary, I would expect blue Devils to reinvent the medium entirely.

Okay. Since when are leaders expected to "reinvent mediums entirely"? You are still adding your own connotations to the term

[flammaster]

and your daughter talk about ugly. again thanks for dinner even though it sucked.

[DrumManTx]

and your daughter talk about ugly. again thanks for dinner even though it sucked.

What the hell are you talking about?

Lol.

[Cappybara]

What the hell are you talking about?

Lol.

I'm confused too lol

[cowtown]

Where on the sheets is "stale design" mentioned?

pretty much the first thing, number 1 on GE visual, last line; Creativity, originality

https://issuu.com/drumcorpsinternational/docs/2012_judging_sheets_full_set

[DrumManTx]

I mean I feel like their show this year is a bit formulaic too. I'm not saying there is anything wrong with that, like you said, if it ain't broken don't fix it, but it's an observation quite a few people have made this year.

I think it's more of a personal taste thing, because if it's designed incredibly well and performed incredibly well of course it should be scoring well. I think my indifference comes with I have gradually fallen in love with 2014 over the last few months, and I just feel like I connected with what they are doing so much more in 2014 and even last year at times.

I think what MikeRapp is getting at is they are in the drivers seat of DCI, win or lose right now. They are in position to try something incredibly risky and boundary pushing. That doesn't mean they have to stop doing what they're doing, but I feel like I want them to take a huge risk again and have some element or take on show design that generates a ton of discussion. Feel like they did that with the KPop last year, the whole thematic presentation in 2014, the whole music program in 2013, ect.

[flammaster]

Start your own hate thread. Even though you show is cheesy a/f I don't go on those threads.

[MikeRapp]

Okay. Since when are leaders expected to "reinvent mediums entirely"? You are still adding your own connotations to the term

Well, how would you define leadership? Because it sounds to me you are saying, leaders win on the sheets. Period.

And I have no issue with winning on the sheets. In fact, I have been criticized as defining succeeding as winning by the sheets.

But I, personally, don't automatically conclude that whomever won the gold is leading the evolution of the idiom. In anything.

Blue devils doesn't have to change much of anything to outscore just about everyone for the next decade. But I for one would hope, and expect, that they would WANT to evolve their creative vision, if only because they can.

Blue Devils literally changed the entire direction of DCI by redefining the role of guard in the activity. And they did that not through political actions, or grandstanding, but by simply doing it on the field and doing it at the highest possible level of execution and creativity. And note I used those two words together, because I believe that is what BD did. They out executed, AND out created, the entire field.

Now, there are at least two other corps doing what they did a decade ago, by challenging the boundaries of what a drum corps show is. Why, if you COULD be the definer of the future of drum corps, would you simply choose to score more points than the next guy? That, to me, is what Leadeship is all about.

Edited July 28, 2016 by MikeRapp