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Happy 30 Year Anniversary to Star of Indiana's 1993 Show


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If someone already started a thread on this then my apologies. This is not meant to be some long post or thread but I found myself watching Star of Indiana's 1993 show last night and it felt as modern as ever. The performance of the brass and percussion was really stunning and sounded as good as I remembered when seeing them live.  I found myself blown away by the overall construction of the show. It's amazing to me that after 30 years this show still feels modern, unique, and has seemed to age very well. I know it was not everyone's cup of tea, and I admit it took me a while to adjust to it at the time. 

I  know the subject of how people feel about this show has been beat like a cheap drum so I don't want to go there, but I wonder how people feel the show has aged from an objective perspective.

I guess for me I can't believe it's been 30 years (or almost 30 years since the 2023 season has not started just yet). From my perspective the show has aged well. It was immense in what it brought to design from a timing perspective, body movement, musical flow, and overall visual design. The show would likely still feel uncomfortable to many fans even today. The music was complex and structured in an artistic way that is very different from the normal highs and lows we typically get from drum corps arrangements. Yes, a lot has changed since then with many new bells and whistles allowed. Many other corps have moved in different directions and have innovated in different ways. When it comes to modern drum corps as we see it today I think Star 1993 still holds up and it's clear to see how revolutionary it was back then. How do you think it holds up today? And I am not talking about scores or placements or who you think it would or would not beat.  None of that. I'm thinking more from a visual/music/design/thematic perspective. 

Edited by jwillis35
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I wore out my VHS tape (recorded on 2-hr setting for "highest quality") of the 93 pbs broadcast, particularly Star's program.  My favorite top 3 of all time to this day and that Star show was what really got me to be a drum corps fan for the past 30 years.  It was also a major catalyst that accelerated my love of 20th century classical music.  Checked out a library recording of Bartok's Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta, and that same tape exposed me to his Concerto for Orchestra, which led me down the rabbit hole of the rest of his amazingness. Same thing with Barber's Medea, which also had Adagio for Strings and a couple of his essays on it, and bam, was hooked on his stuff as well.  

Love hearing stories from people who were a part of it and also check out that amazing percussion judge's tape on youtube pretty often.  Even on that tape, the first FFF moment with the brass and percussion is just so visceral.  

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5 minutes ago, Lance said:

My favorite top 3 of all time to this day

No doubt a great top 3 and I loved BD, Madison, Cavaliers and a few others from that year. I think Phantom Regiment had an extraordinary music book. I think most DCI fans could listen to that book just about any year. 

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1 hour ago, GBugler said:

I'll approach it from one marching member's perspective from inside the 1993 Star hornline. To me, this show demonstrates many of the limits of what can be accomplished with G-bugles. The highest of highs, the lowest of lows, both in volume and in timbre. While other corps had already branched out into 3-valve instrumentation, we were still playing a full line of 2-valve K-series King bugles that were purchased by Bill Cook in 1984. The line was, with a small number of exceptions, made up of all of the original Kings from that purchase, meticulously maintained by Eric Lund.

Jim Prime's arrangement of extremely difficult, sometimes almost inaccessible, source material was some of the best brass writing in the history of the activity. It was integrated with our percussion section and visual design because of professional collaboration at the highest level. We were only able to physically perform this show due to the extreme conditioning program that Jim Mason insisted on, and we only had to use three alternate performers to replace brass members, either injured or otherwise, before the end of the season.

I have read lots of opinions of this program over the years, some better informed than others. It was a "revenge" show. It was "too highbrow." It was "not drum corps." I'm here to tell you that it was all of those things, and also so much more. It wasn't just another show and it never will be. Sometimes, I still can't believe that the series of events that led me to Bloomington in January of 1993 actually happened. I wouldn't trade the experience for anything. There will never be anything else like it.

 

It’s not the equipment.  It’s the operator.  You had some master operators in that horn line. 

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 1993 Star of Indiana show demonstrated quite compellingly too ( imo ) that you can utilize traditional uniforms and headgear for the brass and percussion in the show and the show/ theme/ music will  work just as well for audiences in 1993 as it does now in 2023.... maybe better.  Young audiences of today's generation seem to like the show and I have not heard anywhere that the traditional uniforms and headgear worn in this 1993 show did not seem in sync with the show and/ or in any way lessened the effect of the show with audiences either then or now.

Edited by Boss Anova
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I have a lot of love for this organization; I live in Bloomington, and my fiance works at Cook and did Brass theater. I drive by Star Hall aka Brown School aka Regentec. The product put on the field by that organization was always top-notch, and 1993 was no different.

That was a show ahead of its time, and along with Suncoast Sound's '88 were some of the groundbreaking shows to do obscure right. Unfortunately, the '93 show led to some really obscure and abstract show designs from '94 onward that caused me to run away from the activity for several years until things started to become more fan-friendly towards the 2000s.

I don't think "Not The Nutcracker" or "My Spanish Heart" would have been done without Medea.

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47 minutes ago, jjeffeory said:

I have a lot of love for this organization; I live in Bloomington, and my fiance works at Cook and did Brass theater. I drive by Star Hall aka Brown School aka Regentec. The product put on the field by that organization was always top-notch, and 1993 was no different.

That was a show ahead of its time, and along with Suncoast Sound's '88 were some of the groundbreaking shows to do obscure right. Unfortunately, the '93 show led to some really obscure and abstract show designs from '94 onward that caused me to run away from the activity for several years until things started to become more fan-friendly towards the 2000s.

I don't think "Not The Nutcracker" or "My Spanish Heart" would have been done without Medea.

They did it right and then came the parade of clones doing it badly.  It was downright painful at time. 

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