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The 1995 Thread


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Regiment's musical selections were tremendous that year. Jeff Prosperie's vision for the percussion book was killer - I especially liked the drum sticks with bells during the Piano Concerto No. 2 drum feature. The black unis looked incredible, and the frames during the Paganini section were a nice touch. And how cool is the title "Adventures Under a Darkened Sky"?

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The 2nd show I attended in 1995 was Massillon, OH on July 22. For some reason DCI North was here in Ohio. The show was really fantastic top to bottom. Overall I think 92 was a slightly strong year for entertainment, but 95 was pretty close. Blue Devils were incredible and were clearly, at this point, the corps to beat. The Cadets thrilled the crowd with their GE and beautiful music, but visually they had issues and I forget which ending we saw that day. I do not think it was the ending we saw in August for Finals. Phantom Regiment was solid. I love their music book, but visually they were struggling to make sense of the show. From a score standpoint Phantom was actually very close to Cadets for a number of show in June and early July (if you check the season scores) but by this point Cadets were clearly pulling away. 

The crowd went nuts for Bluecoats, as you would imagine. I still feel to this day that this show was an indication that Bluecoats could be something more than just a 10th to 12th place corps. It was clear that they could potentially move into the top 5 one day. We would have to wait until 2005 for that to happen. They had a few down years in the late 90s and had to make some tough changes, but ultimately the program got it going.

My 2nd viewing of Glassmen made me love the show even more. I love classical music. Always have, and Glassmen really put together one of the best musical packages of that summer. This is a show I highly recommend to current DCI fans. It's a great listen.

I also remember being very impressed with Magic, who interestingly enough was running ahead of Crossmen, Glassmen, and Carolina Crown at this point of the season. By the end of the season Magic would fall to 12. Carolina would grab 11, Crossmen 10, and Glassmen 8. For whatever reason it seemed Magic did not have a show that could continue to grow into August. Good show though. 

I was very impressed with Carolina Crown. Stormworks actually got me interested in the composer's works and I eventually did a few of his pieces with my wind ensembles over the years. 

Scores and Recaps below:

July 22, Massillon, OH - DCI North

Please check Contest Summary for information on this show.

Blue Devils..............89.8
Cadets of Bergen County..88.5
Phantom Regiment.........83.5
Bluecoats................80.1
Magic of Orlando.........78.5
Glassmen.................76.8
Crossmen.................76.3
Carolina Crown...........73.8
Boston Crusaders.........65.6
Nite Express.............56.1


DCI North Recap Sheet

          General Effect |   Ensemble     |   Performance    |      |Color
Corps     Mus  Vis  Tot  | Mus  Vis  Tot  | Brs Per Vis Tot. | Tot. |Guard
-------------------------|----------------|------------------|------|-----
Nite Exp  11.0 11.0 22.0 |  8.2  8.2 16.4 | 5.8 6.7 5.3 17.8 | 56.1*| 4.5
Car Crown 15.0 14.2 29.2 | 11.5 10.6 22.1 | 7.6 7.5 7.4 22.5 | 73.8 | 5.8
Glassmen  15.4 15.6 31.0 | 11.6 11.2 22.8 | 7.5 7.6 8.0 23.1 | 76.8*| 7.1
Boston    13.3 12.6 25.9 |  9.6 10.0 19.6 | 6.7 6.6 6.8 20.1 | 65.6 | 5.0
Magic     15.6 15.3 30.9 | 12.0 11.7 23.7 | 7.8 7.9 8.2 23.9 | 78.5 | 6.9
Bluecoats 16.0 16.3 32.3 | 12.1 12.0 24.1 | 8.3 7.8 7.6 23.7 | 80.1 | 8.0
Cadets    18.0 17.5 35.5 | 13.4 13.3 26.7 | 8.7 8.8 8.8 26.3 | 88.5 | 8.8
Phantom   16.9 16.0 32.9 | 13.0 12.6 25.6 | 8.2 8.4 8.4 25.0 | 83.5 | 7.8
Crossmen  15.1 14.9 30.0 | 11.4 11.3 22.7 | 7.4 8.5 7.7 23.6 | 76.3 | 7.0
Blue Devs 18.2 17.9 36.1 | 13.6 13.2 26.8 | 9.1 8.9 8.9 26.9 | 89.8 | 8.9

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A very talented corps....

This is late season. Musical and visual packages have been finalized. 

They had no idea that this is what would bring them to the success of 1996.   This is what I love so much about Regiment.  The constant pursuit of excellence being rewarded after all those years. 

 

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Can't argue with everyone's recording opinions - the '95 (and other IBM years) shows are awful next to the ones before and after.  The pit is massively overbalanced and the whole thing sounds like it wasn't processed at all - just "here, have some noise."  Yikes.

I think '95 was another one of those years where the 1st-12th group was incredibly strong.  Sure didn't feel like a 15 point spread.

The Cavaliers, of course, won title #2 on the backs of GE and Visual.  Their drill was magnificent, and closer to the 2000-2006 Cavaliers than the '92 one.  Lots of big drill moves to jump around for, and their battery was a behemoth.  I don't have a lot to add to everyone else's thoughts - it was just #### good drum corps.  

Cadets had a healthy spread over BD, and I felt it was really more of a pick 'em.  Cadets felt stronger in GE and percussion, BD felt stronger in brass and visual.  (I have no idea what the actual caption scores were - just my impression.)  The Cadets were a ton of fun in '95, even with extra helpings of cheese thrown on, and the John Williams tunes kept everything bright and fast, which to me is Quintessential Cadets.  

Blue Devils kind of made my head explode in '95, as both musically and visually they decided to discard everything they'd done for decades in one fell swoop.  Looking back on it as an adult, it kind of had to happen to stay competitive - judges just weren't going to crown old-school jazz shows - but to young me it felt like a bit of a betrayal.  Musically, they were ok, though it sure as heck didn't feel like an undefeated show coming in . Visually, if there was a story, it's definitely a head scratcher as to what was going on out there.  All in all, in historical context, it was more of a transition year than a statement year.  And they turned out okay.  

Madison did what they did.  It wasn't a revolutionary design, and the charts, while slightly torquing up the difficulty, didn't set minds alight.  They just did what they do, but they probably did it better than they've ever done before or since.  (Yeah, counting the two title shows as well.)  I have a handwritten copy of the snare chart to La Danza Pasillo, and you can pry that from my cold hands.  I'm very much of the opinion that audience reaction should count in GE - if you're not playing to the audience in front of you, why bother? - and I haven't heard a convincing argument yet why Madison shouldn't have been first in that caption.  My *only* gripe - I don't like Concerto de Aranjuez as a song.  That's... about it.

Phantom's dark pivot was awesome, as were their charts in '95. Purple was a great choice to accompany the silver and black, and it looked great on Rich Stadium's bright turf.  (Probably my second favorite TV backdrop from those years.  Camp Randall was first - the colors always popped there.)  The show has a weird double ending where it feels like you're done at about 9 minutes in, right before the closer, then it picks up again.  From a pacing standpoint, either the back of the show got really twisted throughout the summer, or someone on the programming team needed a talking to.  Drum feature was cool for it's literal bells and whistles, but I kind of hoped they'd be a little more aggressive throughout.

Santa Clara's show was a bit of a mess.  The front half was pretty neat in twisting Nutracker stuff, and it actually made sense.  The back half of the show turned into a standard Nutcracker show and dropped the pretense.  They didn't mesh very well.  I think this one sounded better on paper than it did on the field.

Bluecoats absolutely deserved their jump to 7th, and I'd have had them in 6th.  This was their first real show that communicated a visual theme and story, and they hit a home run.  The music was engaging and more sophisticated, the program rode all of the peaks and valleys, and that drum line was rock solid.  It felt like this was they year they adapted to the 90's, and we're all glad they did!

Glassmen, to me, also hit programming paydirt after their incoherent '94 show.  Bach just lends itself to good brass arrangements, and Glassmen brought the hornline to do it justice.  Beautiful guard (and I'm not a guard guy) and good drill program helped a lot too.  Drumline was all right, if they didn't set the world on fire.

Colts and Glassmen always seemed to be Finals partners during these years.  This was really the first Colts show that grabbed me long-term.  It was also really the first time I'd really listened to any Sondheim.  As such, it has a lot of flow, but not much extended development or repetition to latch on to.  There was a very stream of consciousness sort of pacing to it, and that made it memorable.  

Crossmen ... well, I liked the music.  Both School for Scandal and Sym. for Brass and Percussion were memorable, exciting charts, and the drumline brought the heat in the closer quite nicely.  It just wasn't The Crossmen, you know?  Overall, though, I think I had less of a problem with it than most, because the did managed to shoehorn the battery in so nicely.  

Carolina Crown made their first Finals with Stephen Melillo and the largest 90's shoulder pads known to man.  I'm automatically predisposed to any show that courageously includes Enya, and Stormworks was pretty cool.  Can't argue with the placement - it felt about right.

Magic of Orlando dropped the Cirque stuff while... not dropping the Cirque stuff.  The Robert W. Smith charts were really cool, though, evoking the same feelings while putting it in a more drum-corps-ey setting.  Much more complex music than '93 and '94, and they were growing up nicely - though at the time we didn't understand it.  They got kind of fairly / kind of unfairly labeled as the "weird" corps.  With the advantage of hindsight, they were merely ahead of their time.

Other notable shows - Blue Knights zagged right off the cliff, though they recovered fairly quickly.  VK dropped most of the pretense and put on a drummer's delight.  Troopers felt a more distant 14th than they did the year before.  Pioneer jumped onto a looot of people's radar (in a good way) with a Totally Irish show that worked.  

All in all, like I said a very strong 1-12 lineup.  Most of the shows were just fun, while still growing up on a showmanship and sophistication level.

Mike

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1 hour ago, MikeN said:

Can't argue with everyone's recording opinions - the '95 (and other IBM years) shows are awful next to the ones before and after.  The pit is massively overbalanced and the whole thing sounds like it wasn't processed at all - just "here, have some noise."  Yikes.

It would be nice if the technology were available to reconstruct older show audio in a way that gave a better sense of how poorly-recorded performances really sounded.

DCI's "essentials" videos a few years ago at least did some remixing, as I recall: they were able to make the soloist at the end of Cadets' "Appalachian Spring" show audible; it had been overwhelmed by crowd noise on earlier recordings.

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3 hours ago, MikeN said:

I think '95 was another one of those years where the 1st-12th group was incredibly strong.  Sure didn't feel like a 15 point spread.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this. I shall now go back and see if you've recapped the other years this way. And if I find that you haven't, I shall request it.

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On 5/3/2020 at 7:21 PM, hostrauser said:

Pretty sure I have every year from 1987-2002 on VHS. Let me do some digging.

If you have the full Finals, it might not have the pre-show. As far as I know, they only put that on the individual VHS for us.

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