Whats your on favorite show?

[CrownBariDad]

Already picked my favorite show above.

First show as a fan:  1990 DATR (though I had watched DCI on broadcast TV several times).

I had already aged out when DCI started, so never marched.  I really didn't hear about any local D&BC in the NC area while I was growing up or else I didn't pay attention.  I was a brass and percussion musician all through Jr High, HS, and college, so you would have thought I'd heard something about the activity. 

[ThePlanets]

1 hour ago, shofmon88 said:

My favorite show was 2004 Finals in Denver, Colorado. 

(OP, this is what you get when you phrase the question as vague as you did!)

This was my second live experience with drum corps, after prelims two nights prior. 

I was with my high school marching band. None of us had seen drum corps before that weekend. We were all so completely blown away by it all, yet by finals we had already divided into who we wanted to win, BD or Cavies. It was fun to cheer for our newly adopted favorite corps (one of my classmates can be clearly heard in the recording shouting "go BD!"). 

We couldn't believe how high the BD soloist could hit. We loved it. 

The crowd was electric. I can still hear the roar. 

The surprise ending for BD, where they suddenly filed off into the tunnel. 

The most epic Vanguard yell that ever was, and ever shall be. 

Blue Knight's return to finals in front of their home crowd. 

You are a genius.  While I can easily think of my 10 favorite individual corps performances  of all time...I don't think I can pick just one and be happy with my choice without flip flopping my answer many times.

BUT my favorite show of all time is easy. 2015 in Massillon OH.

1. Small ensembles from crown brass came out to play... I love crown brass.

2. The Bluecoats encore.

3. 3 of my favorite shows of all time in one sitting. 2015 was my favorite year for DCI.

4. We had killer seats in the blast zone.

5.  Phantom sounded great.  I can only imagine what I would have heard from Phantom 5-20 years before in the same seats.

6. My husband finally understood the love and respect that I have had for the blue knights since 2005. 

7. The Spark of Invention. My favorite SCV show ever. Intriguing from start to finish with one of the most beautiful melodic solos I have ever heard.

8. Kinetic Noise.  Talk about thought provoking.  This show had me engaged from start to finish and thinking from it's premier in Indy. Probably my favorite percussion feature ever.  Amazing to see live.  It didn't get the reception in Massillon that I thought it would. Over the past 2 years I have watched and listened to this show (from finals) at least once every two weeks. I am not a judge and I know nothing about color guard but this is the closest to a flawless performance that I have ever seen.

9. Abandon all hope ye who enter here. Inferno.  What a beast of a show live.  I have never heard a better horn line.  Fantastic GE with so few props.  It's a shame their percussion held them back. This seemed to be the crowd favorite in Massillon that night.

10. The Cadets...I didn't really like their show but man did they perform the heck out of it.  So clean and polished and difficult both visually and musically to accomplish.  Anyway... after trailing the cadets most of the season this is the day that Kinetic Noise and the Power of 10 tied.

Edited August 3, 2017 by ThePlanets

[garfield]

1 hour ago, Terri Schehr said:

Old skool:  1984  Garfield Cadets 

New skool:  2012 Carolina Crown 

First show as a fan:  Illinois State Fair 1968

First show marched:  Streator, Illinois  1972

I like your response format so much I'm going to edit my post.

There really are two skools...

 

[ftwdrummer]

First show watched: 2005 Dallas. I was sitting in the cheap seats, directly in line with the side one end line (not the goal line, the end line--thanks, high school band group tickets). I remember far more about the actual physical program than I do any of the things I watched.

The one show based on watching the tapes: Star '93

1) The minimalist use of color in both instrument and guard uniforms--black, white/cream, silver, that's it.

2) Those horn solis to open the show.

3) The sleigh bells in the closing build of the opener

4) A prototypical "musical" drum feature...more quiet than the norm, more heavy use of front ensemble and back-to-front synchronization. A bit of a progenitor for the ones BD did in '05 and '11.

5) Hornline individual visual moments. Given where Todd Ryan went after this, no wonder that BD has the visual style that they do now.

6) The clarity of the hornline after the battery cuts out in the big "Medea" hit.

7) The extra marching toms for "Medea."

8) The unique visual tricks the guard does with the non-traditional equipment throughout--the triangles were interesting; the tricks they were able to pull with the poles were just plain cool.

9) Use of more minimalistic music, and how heavily they leaned on it. Someone probably would have gone there at some point musically, but this is the direct progenitor for late-90's Vanguard, a good chunk of mid-'00s BK, and Kinetic Noise (for all you Kinetic Noise-heads).

10) The baritone player screaming after horns down in the recording.

The one show live: 2013 San Antonio

1) First regional I attended after I graduated college; second regional ever. First live show a classmate of mine (who was getting ready to go back to school for a second bachelor's, this time in music ed) attended. Also attended it with another classmate who was taking the summer off from BK, so got actual marching-member insights, which was nice.

2) Surf's opening hit. "The Chicken" was one of my high school jazz band's signature tunes--hearing it on a drum corps field was pretty epic.

3) Oregon hit a Star '91-style cross, I thought, "wait, they're not going to..." and then they did the bloody cross-to-cross. And came in 17th. The cross-to-cross went from crowning achievement of a master artist's magnum opus to seventeenth-place standard closer in my lifetime. Bonkers.

4) Troop had a delightful show that was more "Troop" than the previous couple years. And did the sunburst. While playing "Battle Hymn of the Republic." With one of the guard members in an old school guard uniform holding the flag. It brought a tear to my eye.

5) Blue Knights had a show with accessible music that didn't have a concept that read like Sully picked a piece of music and then went up into the mountains with some peyote to figure out a show for it (looking at you, 2012). Watching it with a BK alum was rather cool, too.

6) MADISON. The on-the-starting-line opener. The Joe Bruno announcement. Had me leap out of my seat with the hit on the fleur-de-lis in the opener. Night on Bald Mountain. And watching people in the lower bowl stand up for "Never Walk" (I was in the upper deck). And then a company front. Tears. Many of them.

7) Vanguard. Les Mis. Pretty much all my percussion instructors in high school were ex-Phantom under Rennick. Rennick drum books are the best. And this was a good one. One of the more clever Weber drills, too (the VAN(guard) set!).

8) Not my favorite Cadets show ever, but I rather love Barber (see: my one show on video), so this was good. Also, that mello soloist made me wish we could go back in time and get Cadets to have done WSS in '04 instead of '09, so she could have had a crack at Barb Maroney's solos in 2014.

9) Yo, jazz Rite of Spring is dope.

10) CROWNbrass.

[ouooga]

Instructions aren't clear. Is this supposed to be AP style or MLA? Single or double spaced? Is there a margin or font requirement?

 

Also Cavaliers 2000. All these years later, Niagara Falls is still my favorite.

[snare_guy_83]

So are we now going with these definitions?
Show = Event Attended & Year   (San Antonio 2001)
Program = Corps Name & Year   (Santa Clara Vanguard 1999)

[jwillis35]

Garfield Cadets 1987 - Appalachian Spring

1. Expert music arranging for brass and percussion. Very true to the original masterpiece by Copland.
2. The show had a sense of awe, wow, and a regal nature to it. It was artistic as anything you will see in drum corps.
3. Perfect drill writing (Zingali)
4. Staging of the guard was masterful
5. The opening hit is classic drum corps power
6. Ballet. The show utilized ballet stances and a ballet dancer.
7. I tend to be a symphonic person first and foremost (even though I love jazz), and this show spoke to my heart.
8. Excellence in marching
9. Killer company front, with the build to the front, the dissolving of the front, and the reappearance. A total wow moment at that time and the crowd went nuts!
10. One of the best soft endings ever in DCI history with the backstage exit and masterful drill by Zingali.
11. And just for good measure, the show did win Gold, but it had to do so against what I feel is also one of the best shows anyone will ever see in their lifetime (SCV 1987). To me you could have had a tie and I would have been fine with that. Two of the most perfectly designed shows ever were SCV and Garfield 1987.

[oldbandguy]

3 hours ago, garfield said:

  If I hear Kinetic Noise one more time my head is going to explode.

History counts, folks.  Perspective is important.   

 

 

Kinetic Noise does qualify as part of DCI "HISTORY"...and the OP simply asked which show is your ONE.

[BoaDci]

3 minutes ago, oldbandguy said:

Kinetic Noise does qualify as part of DCI "HISTORY"...and the OP simply asked which show is your ONE.

[garfield]

15 minutes ago, jwillis35 said:

Garfield Cadets 1987 - Appalachian Spring

1. Expert music arranging for brass and percussion. Very true to the original masterpiece by Copland.
2. The show had a sense of awe, wow, and a regal nature to it. It was artistic as anything you will see in drum corps.
3. Perfect drill writing (Zingali)
4. Staging of the guard was masterful
5. The opening hit is classic drum corps power
6. Ballet. The show utilized ballet stances and a ballet dancer.
7. I tend to be a symphonic person first and foremost (even though I love jazz), and this show spoke to my heart.
8. Excellence in marching
9. Killer company front, with the build to the front, the dissolving of the front, and the reappearance. A total wow moment at that time and the crowd went nuts!
10. One of the best soft endings ever in DCI history with the backstage exit and masterful drill by Zingali.
11. And just for good measure, the show did win Gold, but it had to do so against what I feel is also one of the best shows anyone will ever see in their lifetime (SCV 1987). To me you could have had a tie and I would have been fine with that. Two of the most perfectly designed shows ever were SCV and Garfield 1987.

Yes, a very hard call for me between "83 and "87.  What a decade!