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All time shows: Blue Knights


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 I thought it would be cool to start a weekly thread about what performances we loved and didn't love about each corps.  For week 2 we are headed to Denver to celebrate and discuss the Blue Knights

What are your top 1-5 all time Blue Knights shows?

(Optional) What are your 1-3 least favorites from them?

You can go into as much or little detail as you like but please please try to keep things positive!

I am a huge BK fan so my long answer will come later today- I am pumped for this thread.

For a quick recap in case you missed it and/or want to add your contributions:

Week 1- Cavies- 2006 the Machine is the favorite and 2012 15 min of fame is the least favorite...for now.

Week 2- Jersey Surf- right now the favorite is 2012 Bridgemania... it's pretty unanimous.

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2008

2011

2014

2015

20i7

 

2016 would get a favorite nod, but I'm still mad at them for not using the lyrics to Saturn as a voiceover like they did for To Build a Home and I'm Alive. 

Edited by FaustianMachine
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2014- ...that one second.  Such a powerful and emotional show with great artistic expression about what death could be like. A beautiful reminder of how precious life is. Also a good example of tasteful and appropriate use of props and narration. Some chicks watch  a sad movie when they want a  good cry...but I just queue up BK 2014...would be my  hands down favorite show of all time but I just can't handle the voice over that overshadows both the hornline and narration towards the end of the show. Still in my top 10 all time though.

2005- a midsummer knight's dream. This is the show that got me interested in DCI and had me considering marching. The Cadets and Cavies were there that night too but this show was my favorite. Jazzy fun moments, moments of darkness, moments of contemplation...a hornline and drumline that make you wonder how this show got 10th place. This show is a perfect match for my personality.

2004- A Knights tale- a great and engaging show from start to finish with wonderful music. Probably my favorite 2nd favorite percussion feature ever.

2009- Shiver- a winter in Colorado. This is a great show that stands out to me in a year that was pretty dry for drum corps. It is probably the coolest drill I have seen from BK and once again I love the music book.

2013- No Beginning No End- This show has no beginning and no end...but it does. Mind blown.

HMs

2015- ... because. This show put BK on the map for my husband with their great and powerful hornline that blew a few other hornlines in Massillon that night off the field.  Loved the smoke and mirrors too.

2016- the great event. More wonderful music and theming and a lot of thinking. 

2017- i loved the triple meaning, the sign language, the science of the inner workings of the eye, and the crownlike brass runs. 

Late 90s BK- I feel the design was ahead of the times and they used a body movement and show theming style that wasn't commonplace for another 10 years

Least favorite

2012- Avain. This was a good show but I just didn't connect with it like I do most BK shows. The firebird gets done a lot too.

Edited by ThePlanets
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I am going to give a shout out for 2017. To me, they put their heart and soul into it. I thought they way they used color was intriguing and I saw an investment I haven't seen in previous years. Now I will offer a bit of a disclaimer here: this past year in Lawrence, MA and in Allentown, my seats were closer to the field and I could see facial expressions, so this may be due to seating, but I really enjoyed their 2017 show.

"Avian" in 2012 was not a favorite, but I see it as a shift from previous shows to what we are seeing today.

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1 hour ago, ThePlanets said:

2005- a midsummer knight's dream. This is the show that got me interested in DCI and had me considering marching. The Cadets and Cavies were there that night too but this show was my favorite. Jazzy fun moments, moments of darkness, moments of contemplation...a hornline and drumline that make you wonder how this show got 10th place. This show is a perfect match for my personality.

This is literally the first complement I've ever seen about the last show I marched. I loved that show. Thank you so much.

Edited by ouooga
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1. 2015 is an absolute work of art. 100% but past me thought the future of drum corps would be, and it nailed it perfectly.

2. 2003 is one of the best designed shows in BK history. If they ever rehashed a show that didn't make finals, this is the one.

3. 2006 is a great dark, edgy show that helped define BK in the mid 2000s.

4. 1994 introduced Trittico, which is a BK staple. And I felt so connected to that show after reading GM's book a few hundred times.

5. 2005 will always hold a special place in my heart. I absolutely loved our music that year (with a few caveats to movement 2).

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Oh heck yeah BK!

 

Favorites -

1998 (Masters of the Symphony) - This of course was back before we tried to tie every little bit of a show together from start to finish.  It's simply great music played well.  They had a *really* tight hornline that year, and they made the whole thing sound like it was easy for them.  Special mention to Largo from New World Symphony - they played it straight, and not many other corps do that (then or now).

2002 (Fear and Trembling) - Look past the 13th place for a moment, and linger on the friggin' menace. I maintain this is one of the most evil openers ever pulled off in DCI.  It might have been too much for this hornline, but I give them such credit for having the stones to throw this show out on the field.  Black music, black visuals - so cooooool.

1992 (Portraits of Aaron Copland) - I'm pretty sure mine is the first voice to ever bring this show up on DCP, but honestly - they pulled it off well.  They played to a pretty dead crowd, having gone on right after VK, but they had a very honest, straightforward set of adaptations that was musically and visually sophisticated.  In some ways, this might have been a more well-received show had it been done in 98 or 99 rather than 1992.

2012 (Avian) - Yeah, I know. Everyone's heard The Firebird.  But I promise you nobody had *seen* it like this before.  They took what should have been a pretty tired and familiar program and turned it into must-watch drum corps.  In this case, the comfortable music *helped* in that you knew what was coming next, but you were glued to your seat to see how they were going to pull it off.  Music and visual made it a wacky, crazy program that was just insane enough to work.

2004 (A Knight's Tale) - music, music, music.  This show had a brilliant music book that had just the right amount of dark and light to it.  They did a wonderful job managing the many different moods while keeping the whole thing together enough in a framework strong enough to make it sound like it was composed as one long piece!

 

Honorable Mention - 2017 (i) - I did not expect to like this show at all.  It looked weird during the setup and the salute was... yeah.  Then the show started and holy cow - they had it all!  They did the thing, then the thing with the snare, then the other thing, then that thing with Hide and Seek...  That was pretty much my experience with their program.  Unexpected and so entertaining. Bravo.

 

Not So Favorites

2001 (Blue Toons) - I get what they were going for here, trying to lighten up their program a bit, but it'd be like Phantom playing Metheny - it's just too entrenched at this point.  They didn't sell it well, and the music book didn't really do them any favors.  So glad they went back into the darkness for 2002!

2014 (That One Second) - Swing and a miss for me.  Once you add lyrics / narration / whatever, there is a whole other layer of meaning, intent and focus that becomes necessary.  Nowhere for me in the show did the music actually match the lyrics, and it never clicked at all.  (I know, I know, I'm in a very small minority here.)  It just felt like the music wanted to be one show, the voice wanted to be another, and neither was what the actual concept of the show was supposed to be.

 

Mike

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 A few BK' shows that immediately come to mind that I liked :

 1994.... " Trittico "

 2004... " A knights Tale "

 2015.... " Because"

 2016...." That One Second "

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Seems again that Mike and I are on the same page

 

Top 5 in no specific order

1992; Cadet-like show, good drill, good music

2007 Dark Dances, really liked the music and visual

2011 - their 2009-11 phase was my favorite from them since early 90s phase (90-94, this was their peak)

1994- birth of the hit

1998 – good music

 

Least favorite 3

2014, really dislike that show, the voice was such a turn off, treacle

2017, when I heard they were playing Hide and Seek, I knew I’d hate it and it’d be part 4 to their trilogy which, is my least liked phase of them ever, too trite, too repetitive, too crying high school guard

2016, I wanted to enjoy the wired but when I saw it in July, unfinished and with them dragging out the intro so it’d make time, I couldn’t forgive it or enjoy it at finals

 

I really hope they take a new direction, a more mature direction that doesn’t pander to tweens

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