2019 Predictions!

[boxingfred]

7 hours ago, skevinp said:

I see what you did there.  

😄

I'm glad you were able to C what I did.😉

[Hook'emCavies]

No fear Cavaliers 🙂

[skevinp]

13 hours ago, boxingfred said:

Very scary top 6. Every corps in that group needs to stay on top of their game. Concord, Crown, Coats, Cavaliers, Clara and Crusaders Have their work cut out for themselves.

If you liked the G7, you're gonna love the C6.  

[kkrepps]

43 minutes ago, skevinp said:

If you liked the G7, you're gonna love the C6.  

What about the Cadets, Crossmen, and the Cuh-nighetts?

[Hook'emCavies]

There is one bright side about not being to go to the Southwestern championships... 🙂 I get to watch videos of shows from corps that will not be performing in Katy. 

The first show I watched were the Troopers. Say what you want about where they may place, but they have yet to perform a show I do not like. Beautiful intro, dirty, but has some potential. 

SOA.... holy cow! I can most certainly see them making finals this year. They have an aggressive program and I love it. That drumline is not too shabby either!

I plan to watch Boston and Mandrains later 🙂

[NCWVUFAN]

Judging by what I've seen after 1 week (none live) I'd have to place the top 6.....

1 Bluecoats

2 Santa Clara

3 Blue Devils

4 Carolina

5 Cavaliers

6 Boston

 

[Glenn426]

So now that there is good clear reads of the top 5 here is my takes on them and what I feel might happen..

BD- They just had a week off no shows during the work week to add to the show, They will continue to add to the show, layer after layer, multiple responsibilities. Brass- book/difficulty doesn't seem up to par this year.. Guard is in high gear and they are taking risks they normally dont take.. The way they use the props in a multitude of ways is the thing this year and because of that I see them winning or second.

Vanguard - The show is there, The props add what is hot right now, Levels... A new way to design that cant be accounted for in a drill program and has to be staged.. Drums will win, Brass book is strong, not as strong (individually) as last year but still stronger than most this year. Guard is there. Not winning a Zingali but still top three after BAC and BD. A Valiant effort but the lack of state-of-the-art Brass Book (which they had last year) might keep them from winning if their Visual and GE scores dont make up the deficit from the Music.

Bluecoats - Amazing production, lots of great emotional moments with a strong connection to the Beatles. But, if you did not have the connection to the Beatles (The movie Yesterday) and this was taken for what is being performed and achieved on the field there are not as much strong connection (GE) points. The main driver of the show is how the audience reacts to hearing Familiar songs performed on the field. IF a judge puts that aside and judges the content without making the emotional connection, then I think Bluecoats have a weakness. The show is a passion project for the staff, I think they sacrificed some of the normal effects they would build into a show to stay true to the Beatles and their vision and in the long run will hurt them competitively, in exchange for being an all-time Fan favorite. The guard while there, are not featured and adding to the effectiveness of the show as much as they should. Imagine watching Bluecoats on mute, how effective is their show? I don't think these questions are being asked right now, but once its the 5th read by a judge and the initial emotional satisfaction wears off, where is the meat in show coming from. Because of this, I think they will slowly start to fall from the top perhaps around ATL where other groups around will start to make ground.

Crown - Almost the direct opposite of Bluecoats, they are purely getting their GE from what is happening on the field. They are putting up alot, Music, marching, spinning being performed at a high level. The music from the Opener to the ballad has alot of Effect written into the book. Old school cadets where they out marched and out played with sheer brute force and execution. My fear is that outside of the closer having some performance issues they are performing their show at a high level right now. What room do they have to grow? How much cleaner can a show get. Peaking early. How do they stop that? What can they add to the show that will keep getting fresh praise on the 5th read? Depending on what they have up their sleeve they either Medal or fall back.

Boston - The corps is having a little performance issues in a couple spots (general dirt, drops etc.., that is common for the first week of tour)The transition between the herald Fanfare and the reprise of the My shot/ Rocky "shout" section needs some work. The frequency of the voice-overs is still there and by the time it gets to the shout section gets to be a little distracting.The ballad in general needs some massaging. The French horn / Euphonium while a good novelty and different texture are adding to the clunky feeling of the ballad, there has consistently been some balance issue with the mics and the blend of the rest of the corps in the recordings I've heard of them.. The Guard is setting the standard right now and will be in a fight with BD to win the Zingali. Drums appear to have fallen behind the brass to be the weakest section so far.The corps in order to make a legit Medal run needs to shore up some of these weaknesses in their own show that are not performance issues so they can close the GE gap and start to go toe-to-toe with the elite. 

 

I think BD and SCV have their medals hanging on their necks already. Its a three way fight between Bluecoats, Boston and Crown to decide the last medal. But I think it stays close through the season, with each corps having their moment. The trick is who is going to have their moment by Finals Week. As a BAC Alum that is all we could have hoped and asked for going in. 

[heyboiay]

53 minutes ago, Glenn426 said:

Crown - Almost the direct opposite of Bluecoats, they are purely getting their GE from what is happening on the field. They are putting up alot, Music, marching, spinning being performed at a high level. The music from the Opener to the ballad has alot of Effect written into the book. Old school cadets where they out marched and out played with sheer brute force and execution. My fear is that outside of the closer having some performance issues they are performing their show at a high level right now. What room do they have to grow? How much cleaner can a show get. Peaking early. How do they stop that? What can they add to the show that will keep getting fresh praise on the 5th read? Depending on what they have up their sleeve they either Medal or fall back.

 

interesting points. In regards to Crown, they are already performing at a pretty high level yes, BUT there is so much to clean and so much to grow. The ballad and closer will be very different come the end of the season.

Edited June 27, 2019 by heyboiay

[jjeffeory]

1 hour ago, Glenn426 said:

So now that there is good clear reads of the top 5 here is my takes on them and what I feel might happen..

BD- They just had a week off no shows during the work week to add to the show, They will continue to add to the show, layer after layer, multiple responsibilities. Brass- book/difficulty doesn't seem up to par this year.. Guard is in high gear and they are taking risks they normally dont take.. The way they use the props in a multitude of ways is the thing this year and because of that I see them winning or second.

Vanguard - The show is there, The props add what is hot right now, Levels... A new way to design that cant be accounted for in a drill program and has to be staged.. Drums will win, Brass book is strong, not as strong (individually) as last year but still stronger than most this year. Guard is there. Not winning a Zingali but still top three after BAC and BD. A Valiant effort but the lack of state-of-the-art Brass Book (which they had last year) might keep them from winning if their Visual and GE scores dont make up the deficit from the Music.

Bluecoats - Amazing production, lots of great emotional moments with a strong connection to the Beatles. But, if you did not have the connection to the Beatles (The movie Yesterday) and this was taken for what is being performed and achieved on the field there are not as much strong connection (GE) points. The main driver of the show is how the audience reacts to hearing Familiar songs performed on the field. IF a judge puts that aside and judges the content without making the emotional connection, then I think Bluecoats have a weakness. The show is a passion project for the staff, I think they sacrificed some of the normal effects they would build into a show to stay true to the Beatles and their vision and in the long run will hurt them competitively, in exchange for being an all-time Fan favorite. The guard while there, are not featured and adding to the effectiveness of the show as much as they should. Imagine watching Bluecoats on mute, how effective is their show? I don't think these questions are being asked right now, but once its the 5th read by a judge and the initial emotional satisfaction wears off, where is the meat in show coming from. Because of this, I think they will slowly start to fall from the top perhaps around ATL where other groups around will start to make ground.

Crown - Almost the direct opposite of Bluecoats, they are purely getting their GE from what is happening on the field. They are putting up alot, Music, marching, spinning being performed at a high level. The music from the Opener to the ballad has alot of Effect written into the book. Old school cadets where they out marched and out played with sheer brute force and execution. My fear is that outside of the closer having some performance issues they are performing their show at a high level right now. What room do they have to grow? How much cleaner can a show get. Peaking early. How do they stop that? What can they add to the show that will keep getting fresh praise on the 5th read? Depending on what they have up their sleeve they either Medal or fall back.

Boston - The corps is having a little performance issues in a couple spots (general dirt, drops etc.., that is common for the first week of tour)The transition between the herald Fanfare and the reprise of the My shot/ Rocky "shout" section needs some work. The frequency of the voice-overs is still there and by the time it gets to the shout section gets to be a little distracting.The ballad in general needs some massaging. The French horn / Euphonium while a good novelty and different texture are adding to the clunky feeling of the ballad, there has consistently been some balance issue with the mics and the blend of the rest of the corps in the recordings I've heard of them.. The Guard is setting the standard right now and will be in a fight with BD to win the Zingali. Drums appear to have fallen behind the brass to be the weakest section so far.The corps in order to make a legit Medal run needs to shore up some of these weaknesses in their own show that are not performance issues so they can close the GE gap and start to go toe-to-toe with the elite. 

 

I think BD and SCV have their medals hanging on their necks already. Its a three way fight between Bluecoats, Boston and Crown to decide the last medal. But I think it stays close through the season, with each corps having their moment. The trick is who is going to have their moment by Finals Week. As a BAC Alum that is all we could have hoped and asked for going in. 

Nothing about the Cavaliers? I guess that means lower than fith for them so maybe six or seven

Edited June 27, 2019 by jjeffeory

[Glenn426]

46 minutes ago, jjeffeory said:

Nothing about the Cavaliers? I guess that means lower than fith for them so maybe six or seven

I only watched them in passing but I just watched their run from Clovis at lunch and my general takeaway is I cant get into anything they are doing ( Drill, music, etc..,) ... Some performance issues and some design issues.

Everyone is a mess and dirty now, but the choices that they made with the music this year make them feel chaotic and unsettled throughout much of their program. A feeling that I think the designers are going for, but even when they clean up the articulations and try to get clarity and space between notes, The general feeling of the program feels unfocused.. So many notes, aggressive articulation section followed by aggressive articulation section, with few a common thread between. Something that I feel has been a common for this design team the last couple of years, (Spend one phrase on a musical thought and move on to the next thought) Outside of the Ballad it is hard to grasp onto a melodic line.. The Drill is a lot of Curva-linear shapes which were hard to read from the Clovis vantage point so it is hard to gauge whats going on.

The design in general feels a little dated, We've seen this from Cavaliers before, the straight scaffolding type prop gives them Levels but this prop has been around since the 80's so it feels unoriginal. 

So given all of this, they have more issues than the groups above to the point that they feel like a design tier below the groups above. I think once everyone comes together in San Antonio they will be 5th or 6th depending on if any of the groups around them are struggling to clean up. But going forward because of the design choices made the other groups will clear them.. 

Everyone has different taste, Some judges might enjoy the heavy articulations shows but for me especially given the recent trends of having more accessible melodic content this feels like a departure from the others around them..