wvu80 Posted August 8, 2017 Share Posted August 8, 2017 (edited) OK, 2.5 hour drive home, just back from the big drum corps show. I haven't seen the scores yet. I know in advance where all the corps have been placing, but allow me to blow that out of the water and give you the results from someone sitting ON the 50 3/4 way up. 1st. It's all about the music. Crown. What a fantastic horn line, easily points above everyone else there tonight. If Crown had Vanguard's ending we would be talking about a new DCI champion (bear in mind, I haven't seen BD) 2nd: Welcome my friends to the show that never ends: Bluecoats I loved this show and the corps has a stage presence that is second to none. Great horns, GE everywhere and a great ending. The pace the members have going both up AND down is that stage of theirs is nothing short of amazing. 3rd: Complete show, top to bottom. The Cadets. I love this show. It has so much polish, the costuming is fantastic and the horn line found some POWER since I first saw them in Massilon in June. I don't care what the judges say, this show is WAY underrated. 4th. It's not how you start, it's how you finish. Vanguard. EASILY the best ending in drum corps, maybe one of the best endings ever. Can you say GE? So why do I have them in 4th tonight? The horn line SOUND. Not the Horn Line, the horn line SOUND. It is just awful and I'll tell you exactly why. EVERYTHING on the field is now amplified through the speakers and it's terrible. No matter where a soloist is you can't even locate the horn on the field, it's projected through at least four speakers along the sidelines. But that's not the problem. The real problem is DISTORTION, and I am NOT wrong about this. The horn line sounds weak if I listen past the speakers. With the speakers the sound is harsh and distorted. I know speaker sound pretty well and what I hear is an amp playing past it's power limit, and there is DISTORTION coming out of the speakers. You live by the speakers, you die by the speakers. Vanguard should be judged by the sound coming off the field and that means the horn line sound is bad. Really, really bad, piercing the ears bad. 5th: Boston Crusaders: Quality everywhere. They have a POWER corps. The horns are loud, they understand pitch balance and blend,they play in tune and they drum great. I know in real life they have been beating Cadets but I think Cadets show is much better than Boston. Much. Note: I do NOT think the Boston drummer should be putting his head in a noose. That seems like an incredibly bad idea and if he were to slip it could be life threatening. There are ways to simulate a hanging without physically putting a rope around someone's nick. 6th: Too much electronics is not a good thing. Cavaliers. Cavies and Vanguard use way too much electronic stuff to enhance their corps sound, Cavaliers being the worst offender. They bring their own mics and set them up in 5 places on the sidelines not for soloists, but to enhance the volume of the horn and drums. It's not a good sound. I thought Cavies marching members have individual execution better than most tonight, they look super sharp. That counts a LOT in my book. 7th: There is such a thing as too much color guard. Phantom Regiment. There are guard members all over the place and frankly I thought PR showed a lot of creativity in how they were used. What was missed in comparison to the rest of the corps tonight was that characteristic Phantom sound. The sound just was not a big as I am used to with them. It's a good sound, but not great sound. 8th: Top quality all around. Crossmen. I loved their uniforms. It was a traditional look in terms of you could tell it was the Crossmen but with a totally modern design. They had a nice field presence. They played great and LOUD. This is a high quality corps well worth watching. +++ ALL the corps were great tonight, but in terms of rank order, that's my take on what I saw from the stands. I'm sure everyone agrees with me. (wvu80 ducks and runs) Edited August 8, 2017 by wvu80 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liahona Posted August 8, 2017 Share Posted August 8, 2017 2 minutes ago, N.E. Brigand said: Well, since I think BD is musically awesome based simply on Flo's streams, maybe I'm better off not seeing them in person? Because I'd hate to be disappointed by them live. You would NOT be disappointed with BD... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
N.E. Brigand Posted August 8, 2017 Share Posted August 8, 2017 (edited) Anyway, I look forward to revisiting this thread later, but I have to drive to Michigan City tomorrow (4.5 hours) for the O.C. Finals, and won't have time to comment further now. Except to say that this was how it seemed to me 1. Bluecoats 2. Carolina Crown 3. Santa Clara Vanguard 4. (tie) Boston Crusaders & Cavaliers 6. Cadets 7. Crossmen 8. Phantom Regiment Cadets, Phantom, SCV, and Cavs all need to turn down the amps. A lot. Crown a little. Bloo, Boston, and Crossmen are fine in this regard. Edited August 8, 2017 by N.E. Brigand Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PopcornEater1963 Posted August 8, 2017 Share Posted August 8, 2017 5 minutes ago, N.E. Brigand said: 4. (tie) Boston Crusaders & Cavaliers Boston is going to have to play a more complicated music book for this to happen. Just my two cents. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
N.E. Brigand Posted August 8, 2017 Share Posted August 8, 2017 (edited) 6 minutes ago, PopcornEater1963 said: Boston is going to have to play a more complicated music book for this to happen. Just my two cents. Cavaliers book is so fragmented and, in my experience tonight, overwhelmed by sounds from the speakers (when those sounds weren't the brass), that I think they should be getting buried in music analysis. The show was cute the first time I saw it a week ago in Centerville, but tonight everything that seemed potentially problematic (like playing along to the very long recorded "My Way" vocals) was really brought out. The collage approach worked last year; I'm having trouble with it now. Edit: To be fair, it wasn't just "cute" in Centerville. I genuinely enjoyed it that night and predicted it would score right about where it did. There's a lot of good effects, to which the guard especially contribute. Edited August 8, 2017 by N.E. Brigand 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wvu80 Posted August 8, 2017 Share Posted August 8, 2017 3 minutes ago, N.E. Brigand said: Cavaliers book is so fragmented and, in my experience tonight, overwhelmed by sounds from the speakers I didn't hear brass horns from the field, I heard speakers. :( 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PopcornEater1963 Posted August 8, 2017 Share Posted August 8, 2017 Just now, N.E. Brigand said: Cavaliers book is so fragmented and, in my experience tonight, overwhelmed by sounds from the speakers (when those sounds weren't the brass), that I think they should be getting buried in music analysis. The show was cute the first time I saw it a week ago in Centerville, but tonight everything that seemed potentially problematic (like playing along to the very long recorded "My Way" vocals) was really brought out. The collage approach worked last year; I'm having trouble with it now. To each his own. I'm not a big fan of amplified brass either. Cavs started using it on 7-22 in San Antonio, evidently because they felt like they "had to". Amplified or not, the technical prowess required to play Cavs book versus Boston's book isn't in question. Regardless of "fragmentation" or "amplification". Evidently the judges realize this as well, because BAC hasn't put a serious threat to the Cavs on the field in head to head appearances all year ( overall...they may have beaten them in brass captions once) . That doesn't mean it won't happen in the next 4-5 days. I love Boston's show, and am glad to see Boston in the thick of it. But I'm not going to discount the Cavs degree of difficulty. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
N.E. Brigand Posted August 8, 2017 Share Posted August 8, 2017 Just now, wvu80 said: I didn't hear brass horns from the field, I heard speakers. :( I got that more in Centerville than I did tonight, actually. And oddly, i was much closer to the speakers tonight. (I was also closer to Cavs generator, the only one I heard all evening.) And I think there's an argument to be made in favor of amplifying the entire brass line if they do that instead of thunderous goo from the synths. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PopcornEater1963 Posted August 8, 2017 Share Posted August 8, 2017 1 minute ago, wvu80 said: I didn't hear brass horns from the field, I heard speakers. :( Did you hear speakers with Bloo? Or Crown? Or Devils ( not tonight). Or Cadets? In Atlanta, I watched live as Bloo put their whole hornline backfield left into the corner of the field while listening to their brass line pumping full volume out of a speaker field right. I don't like it at all. But if DCI isn't going to stop it, I don't know why anyone would single out a single corps for using it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wvu80 Posted August 8, 2017 Share Posted August 8, 2017 Just now, PopcornEater1963 said: Did you hear speakers with Bloo? Or Crown? Or Devils ( not tonight). Or Cadets? Yes. (haven't heard BD live, so no judgement from me) MUCH less hornline ensemble amplification with Crown than any other corps. Especially in the opener you can hear each horn section individually from left to right as they were ON THE FIELD with incredible articulation. Cadets used some chest thump electronics, but it was not the amplified horn sound. Cavies and Vanguard were by far the worst offenders and the horn line sound for each corps suffered clear distortion IMO. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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