An(napolis)chors Aweigh - Aug 1

[saxfreq1128]

2 hours ago, KVG_DC said:

Holy crap. The moon. 
 

 

BD’s props are getting weird

[Metalbinky]

1 hour ago, postertrout said:

This is a spreadsheet I maintain for my son while he is on tour and Cadets, Mandarins, and Phantom are all within points of each other in all captions. The Cadets have the edge in Brass and Perc, right now, but have issues with Vis - especially with their Guard scores. GE seems to be closer than expected considering the Cadets are sort of lacking in big GE moments. Cannot wait until Saturday! So exciting. 

This is so great!  I’ve done something similar for my kids in high school marching band, trying to get a good idea where  their bands would be seeded going into their championship comps.   I imagine there to be so many score watchers and analyzers in that fight for the 12th spot.

 The scores to date are pointing to the most competitive season in a long time, maybe in the history of DCI.   Is it possible that we’ll see 11 corps break 90?   

[spacewill]

17 minutes ago, postertrout said:

Good Grief Chief, I hope he is not a judge in Indy..... 

He retired from Avon this past year.  I am sure he will be a staple in DCI judging (especially at big events) for the next 10 years!  He may also try to figure out how to screw up BOA events too!

[KVG_DC]

Ok. I'm home.  Here we go.
 

Overall impressions.  If you can get to a show live, do it. Figure out the trip, the costs, etc.  This season seem special as everything is back in gear.  The stands were like a reunion.  I went alone to this one but all around me people were, "Oh hi! i haven't seen you in ages."  Also, you can tell the corps are all hitting a new gear with the break in the heat. The energy was so good tonight. It's truly worth going even if it's "just 5 corps."  

It's been since...forever it feels that i've done a live show.  I didn't do last year because I am techincally on an immunosuppressive med and last summer was still feeling 'iffy' about big crowds.  And of course, the two years before that, and I didn't do 2019 for whatever reason I had that year that's been forgotten. The difference of being there live is wild. On Flo I was listening to Atlanta and Nightbeat and noticing that 'processed sound' in the balance between pit, brass ensemble, and electronics with some corps.  Cadets were one of them and frankly so was BD.  In person it's nothing like that at all. Everything sounded well balanced and mixed tonight.  Even in comparison to past years where I could recall Cadets in person sounding over balanced with the electronic sound support becoming overbearing at times.  None of that this year at all.  Corps are figuring this stuff out across the board and for all we can listen on Flo and kvetch over it here, in person I just didn't hear it that way.  I dunno if it's Flo's mic placement, their mixing of the corps sound board inputs, or the compression to stream it but .. it was wildly better in person across the board. 

Lastly, I am amazed at the dedication and commitment and sheer talent all these kids have across all the corps.  They strike me as so very young at times.  But they are peforming absolutely buying into their experience and performing the heck out of them with verve and passion.

Now for the shows!

Jersey Surf

THANK YOU for keeping a spirit of pure fun in Drum Corps! This show is a delight to watch, particularly for those of us who remember the 80s music it uses (which I've learnt from my neices is fairly popular among a number of the youngster sets too actually.) I've only seen them once on Flo so there was a lot going on I was seeing that was new to me.  

There's a guard bit at the start of the show where one guard member is restrained and pulled back by two others, then struggles her way loose, dons the hat (fedoras are VERY in this season across a number of shows...heh) then they open with Church of the Poison Mind while in the all blacks for the corps and all whites for the guard.  The guard struggles a bit with the looseness of their uniforms at the start and handling things like the back spins of rifles and if the silks rub on the uniform sleeves and pants that flow.  But they didn't have drops that I saw. 

They go behind the Black and white wall props and True Colors begins as colors emerge.  They really do 'burst through' the uniform reveals with a sense of individuality.  You can tell they've told them "do your thing as you burst into color" or something similar. Its very effective with the theme.  The build from the solo to the ensemble for True Colors is lovely.

From there, they go to Express Yourself and Born This Way, which have some melodic similarities that work real well together and the show ends with a lot of joy.


Blue Knights

All season I've been watching this show grow from a rough skeleton to a sense of "ok, this is back to the 'BK being weird' thing that catapualted them up the ranks since 2014."  Yet it didn't seem to a make a cohesive whole.  I'm pretty sure it's not supposed to fully "make sense" and perhaps "unhinged" would be a better title than "unharnessed" or even "undone."  But in person, when you can pick and choose where your eye wants to go and gets guided to at times, it made more sense!  By which I mean it read as a more coherent presentation of weridness and unhinged moments on the edge.  

There's some really good use of weird percussive things (pots and pans, gongs, wind chimes) in the props that add to that 'what ... IS this?' feeling as it pulls you through a variety of sonic soundscapes.  The viz body movements pull them along as well as some increased clarity in the guard work that I could see too.  I'd say it's still not 'clicking' as a whole entirely, and I'm frankly not sure it can get there. But it does work better in person than it ever did for me on Flo.  

Lastly, a few shows ago, they had a fairly flat performance and there was some chatter of "uh oh, the kids aren't buying into the show and selling it."  After tonight, I think that was largely heat/sick effects. They're perhaps not cleaning as fast or locked in as they could/should be, but they're definitely buying into the show and selling it.


Mandarins

Whew.  This show does NOT stop.  I think this crowd was savvy to Mandarins' rise this year because there was a lot of buzz as they took the field.  Mandarins are NOT sneaking up on anyone anymore.  They have served notice that they have arrived and this crowd saw that and appreciated it.  They come on with a swagger and confidence of what they're doing that is definitely NOT a "we're still new to the top 12 and can't quite believe we're here."  Nope. They came on with a "we belong in the race we're in and we're here to win it."  

Everything cooks so well.  I was noticing a fair few visual things done around the props that help them make a ton more sense to me.  They're definitley representing the 7 deadly sins and becoming entrapped in them.  Our Original Sinner struts into the circle of them and entices the guard in then slowly the all start turning red.  The wall in the center separates the red from the white and they take their turns making their case.  FIrst the Sinners then the Saints.  When the Saints are making their case the Sinners are clawing at the wall then break through and we get that intermixed Angels and Demons style drill.  Finally the wall falls and they do that interweaving between them as they start spinning for the frist time.  Then it's all in to sin! 

But it's not a sense of "fall from grace" as it is a "reconciling with the messy realities of life rather than an abstract ideal of a moral life."  I'm Tired is where the exhaustion of trying to 'be good' against one's messy reality falls apart, and Take Me to Church is where they reconcile with the passions of life.  And the Sinnerman comes out to finish the show.  The 7 that go on the props actually struggle around them climbing in front, then back and getting enmeshed as they grab hold.  They're pushed forward by the guard THEN the spin begins (or at least tonight) so it seemed that the actually spinning isn't going on for all that long.  

Crowd response to the ending was basially OH god that is CRAZY!  


Blue Devils

Ok all season people have been saying "you have to see this one live, Flo can't do it justice."  I'm like "well Flo doesn't do anyone full justice so its all relatively 'lowered' in similar ways."  But...nah, they're right, you gotta see this one in person.  There's something about the tonal quality that is really different!  I mean, everyone was improved live compared to Flo, but Blue Devils MORE so.  

The show viz was much more locked in than I've seen the body motion during the Speech and Drums that comes into that big column was much more locked in than Nightbeat.  It was super impressive.  Because they're not in lines or a grid, they have to NAIL the synchronicity of person to person motion and tonight, the got there.  Jojo's had a LOT of people bopping their heads. It's every bit a 'musical moment' as Bloo's Bump is for me.  There's not the weird syncopation overlays but there's a groove...for ...days.  

The ballad made me weepy. Wow. There a LOT of people of my generation and older just giving a sigh with a far away look of wistfulness. They're selling the feeling of what that song means to so many with that oh so delicate arrangment.

Innovations in Jazz is really really really coming together. I still think they have more up their sleeves for the end of the show. I mean when has BD not...  But they have upped the temp and groove of Innovations in Jazz now and it is a toe tap to foot stomper.  The tubas had it locked in tonight too for the latter part of their feature.  The back end of the show is cleaning up FAST.

That said, I'm not sure the percussion is cleaning up as fast as the rest of the corps. Their book is .... frankly ambitions as h_ll.  But there was fuzz in it here and there. It's not terrible by any means, it just sort of sticks out.  I dunno if they'll take the hose to it a bit so they can play clean as we approach Allentown or keep trying to clean it.  It's been a discussion about BD's battery book recently.  I also dunno if it's a 'weakness' to exploit necessarily but given that Cadets and Cavies lines are able to play WELL above where their corps tier is, and Bloo is able to best them in percussion too on some nights...yeah their ordinal may end up being...a bit weird if they can't get it cleaner.  And given that drum judges will use the tenth of a point to separate lines, falling down the ordinals can mean...a fair few tenths potentially. 

This is not a dig on the Blue Devils! I'm aware that its probably the most critical thing I've said in this review. The only reason i'm bringing it up here is because it was asked about in the previous discussion.  The other corps have their caps and issues as well.  BD can win outright and by a point+ even with the drums not fully cleaning their book. it's just frankly kind of weird to see a BD section be somewhat inconsistent at all...let alone in August. 

Cadets

This is a home show and home crowd for Cadets and they always turn it up a notch with the crowd response.  Allentown is another venue like this and this is part of why Cadets tend to have a 'bounce' about this time of year, which, if they can carry as momentum into Indy, does them well.  The crowd was vocal for them taking the field and anticpating the opening hit for sure.  When they hit it, there was crowd roar that came right into it.  The kids definitely felt that and fed off that energy!  They were on fire!

Two things on Cadet's viz this year. On Flo, the exposed ankles bother me at times because it seems that while they all end 'x inches above the ankle' the fact that some people have longer legs mean the pants end at different heights from the ground.  On Flo...its almost hyper visible...parituclar up close.  Live form the stands...its a total non issue.  The visual continuity down the leg to the feet is clear and the white reads like the classic cadets light pants in so many ways.  Their feet are getting MUCH cleaner too! 

Second, the props made more sense (finally!) in person.  Tonight they finally stuck out as "Oh! These are the mountains around Mt. Olympus."  They are at times an entire mountain range, and at other times in the S from above, reading from the stands like a clustered mountain peak with varied highs and lows on the way to the summit.  This said, they do sort of just 'sit there' in their various formations.  There was more narration but as mentioned, there was a speaker issue so it seemed sort of muddy narration wise. 

Overall the theme reads less as an 'all sports show' and more on the Atlas mythology in a "show of strength" that appears in various athletic posing and such.  Note the ballad, while the horns are being lovely and that soloist is mesermizing us...the battery is over to side one in a bicep flex for days...hah!  (Although I do wish they were doing some light playing under parts of the ballad, they have the "percussion breaks are for percussion and ballad is for brass" arranging.  Which works for them obviously.  Percussion was ON FIRE tonight.  They had that section where they get in the judges face up front and just laid it down.  People around me who were clearly 'drum people' were bouncing out of the seats a bit as the hit the punctuaion mark and flexed before marching back into the field.  

Last thoughts...

 

On the drive home, what show was playing in my head?  Mandarins, interestingly enough.  I think of all the shows I heard tonight, Mandarins have not just 'musical moments' that are memorable but really good musical transitions that make that whole show a soundtrack to what they're doing.  

The race for 5-7 (maybe 8 as well) is going to be incredible.  

 

Edited August 2, 2023 by KVG_DC

[KVG_DC]

28 minutes ago, PeterGibbons said:

You appear to have been sitting two rows behind me as I see the back of my head in about 20% of your pictures from the event!

Hope you combed your hair!  Sorry about that.

[brassboy]

21 minutes ago, saxfreq1128 said:

BD’s props are getting weird

Pretty sure that's Academy's new prop they're planning to debut in Indy.

[brassboy]

11 minutes ago, KVG_DC said:

Ok. I'm home.  Here we go.
 

Overall impressions.  If you can get to a show live, do it. Figure out the trip, the costs, etc.  This season seem special as everything is back in gear.  The stands were like a reunion.  I went alone to this one but all around me people were, "Oh hi! i haven't seen you in ages."  Also, you can tell the corps are all hitting a new gear with the break in the heat. The energy was so good tonight. It's truly worth going even if it's "just 5 corps."  
....

Thank you for taking the time to share such detailed and positive thoughts. I'm so glad you got to see such a great show live and in-person!

[Chief Guns]

24 minutes ago, KVG_DC said:

Ok. I'm home.  Here we go.
 

Overall impressions.  If you can get to a show live, do it. Figure out the trip, the costs, etc.  This season seem special as everything is back in gear.  The stands were like a reunion.  I went alone to this one but all around me people were, "Oh hi! i haven't seen you in ages."  Also, you can tell the corps are all hitting a new gear with the break in the heat. The energy was so good tonight. It's truly worth going even if it's "just 5 corps."  

It's been since...forever it feels that i've done a live show.  I didn't do last year because I am techincally on an immunosuppressive med and last summer was still feeling 'iffy' about big crowds.  And of course, the two years before that, and I didn't do 2019 for whatever reason I had that year that's been forgotten. The difference of being there live is wild. On Flo I was listening to Atlanta and Nightbeat and noticing that 'processed sound' in the balance between pit, brass ensemble, and electronics with some corps.  Cadets were one of them and frankly so was BD.  In person it's nothing like that at all. Everything sounded well balanced and mixed tonight.  Even in comparison to past years where I could recall Cadets in person sounding over balanced with the electronic sound support becoming overbearing at times.  None of that this year at all.  Corps are figuring this stuff out across the board and for all we can listen on Flo and kvetch over it here, in person I just didn't hear it that way.  I dunno if it's Flo's mic placement, their mixing of the corps sound board inputs, or the compression to stream it but .. it was wildly better in person across the board. 

Lastly, I am amazed at the dedication and commitment and sheer talent all these kids have across all the corps.  They strike me as so very young at times.  But they are peforming absolutely buying into their experience and performing the heck out of them with verve and passion.

Now for the shows!

Jersey Surf

THANK YOU for keeping a spirit of pure fun in Drum Corps! This show is a delight to watch, particularly for those of us who remember the 80s music it uses (which I've learnt from my neices is fairly popular among a number of the youngster sets too actually.) I've only seen them once on Flo so there was a lot going on I was seeing that was new to me.  

There's a guard bit at the start of the show where one guard member is restrained and pulled back by two others, then struggles her way loose, dons the hat (fedoras are VERY in this season across a number of shows...heh) then they open with Church of the Poison Mind while in the all blacks for the corps and all whites for the guard.  The guard struggles a bit with the looseness of their uniforms at the start and handling things like the back spins of rifles and if the silks rub on the uniform sleeves and pants that flow.  But they didn't have drops that I saw. 

They go behind the Black and white wall props and True Colors begins as colors emerge.  They really do 'burst through' the uniform reveals with a sense of individuality.  You can tell they've told them "do your thing as you burst into color" or something similar. Its very effective with the theme.  The build from the solo to the ensemble for True Colors is lovely.

From there, they go to Express Yourself and Born This Way, which have some melodic similarities that work real well together and the show ends with a lot of joy.


Blue Knights

All season I've been watching this show grow from a rough skeleton to a sense of "ok, this is back to the 'BK being weird' thing that catapualted them up the ranks since 2014."  Yet it didn't seem to a make a cohesive whole.  I'm pretty sure it's not supposed to fully "make sense" and perhaps "unhinged" would be a better title than "unharnessed" or even "undone."  But in person, when you can pick and choose where your eye wants to go and gets guided to at times, it made more sense!  By which I mean it read as a more coherent presentation of weridness and unhinged moments on the edge.  

There's some really good use of weird percussive things (pots and pans, gongs, wind chimes) in the props that add to that 'what ... IS this?' feeling as it pulls you through a variety of sonic soundscapes.  The viz body movements pull them along as well as some increased clarity in the guard work that I could see too.  I'd say it's still not 'clicking' as a whole entirely, and I'm frankly not sure it can get there. But it does work better in person than it ever did for me on Flo.  

Lastly, a few shows ago, they had a fairly flat performance and there was some chatter of "uh oh, the kids are buying into the show and selling it."  After tonight, I think that was largely heat/sick effects. They're perhaps not cleaning as fast or locked in as they could/should be, but they're definitely buying into the show and selling it.


Mandarins

Whew.  This show does NOT stop.  I think this crowd was savvy to Mandarins' rise this year because there was a lot of buzz as they took the field.  Mandarins are NOT sneaking up on anyone anymore.  They have served notice that they have arrived and this crown saw that and appreciated it.  They come on with a swagger and confidence of what they're doing that is definitely NOT a "we're still new to the top 12 and can't quite believe we're here."  Nope. They came on with a "we belong in the race we're in and we're here to win it."  

Everything cooks so well.  I was noticing a fair few visual things done around the props that help them make a ton more sense to me.  They're definitley representing the 7 deadly sins and becoming entrapped in them.  Our Original Sinner struts into the circle of them and entices the guard in then slowly the all start turning red.  The wall in the center separates the red from the white and they take their turns making their case.  FIrst the Sinners then the Saints.  When the Saints are making their case the Sinners are clawing at the wall then break through and we get that intermixed Angels and Demons style drill.  Finally the wall falls and they do that interweaving between them as they start spinning for the frist time.  Then it's all in to sin! 

But it's not a sense of "fall from grace" as it is a "reconciling with the messy realities of life rather than an abstract ideal of a moral life."  I'm Tired is where the exhaustion of trying to 'be good' against one's messy reality falls apart, and Take Me to Church is where they reconcile with the passions of life.  And the Sinnerman comes out to finish the show.  The 7 that go on the props actually struggle around them climbing in front, then back and getting enmeshed as they grab hold.  They're pushed forward by the guard THEN the spin begins (or at least tonight) so it seemed that the actually spinning isn't going on for all that long.  

Crowd response to the ending was basially OH god that is CRAZY!  


Blue Devils

Ok all season people have been saying "you have to see this one live, Flo can't do it justice."  I'm like "well Flo doesn't do anyone full justice so its all relatively 'lowered' in similar ways."  But...nah, they're right, you gotta see this one in person.  There's something about the tonal quality that is really different!  I mean, everyone was improved live compared to Flo, but Blue Devils MORE so.  

The show viz was much more locked in than I've seen the body motion during the Speech and Drums that comes into that big column was much more locked in than Nightbeat.  It was super impressive.  Because they're not in lines or a grid, they have to NAIL the synchronicity of person to person motion and tonight, the got there.  Jojo's had a LOT of people bopping their heads. It's every bit a 'musical moment' as Bloo's Bump is for me.  There's not the weird syncopation overlays but there's a groove...for ...days.  

The ballad made me weepy. Wow. There a LOT of people of my generation and older just giving a sigh with a far away look of wistfulness. They're selling the feeling of what that song means to so many with that oh so delicate arrangment.

Innovations in Jazz is really really really coming together. I still think they have more up their sleeves for the end of the show. I mean when has BD not...  But they have upped the temp and groove of Innovations in Jazz now and it is a toe tap to foot stomper.  The tubas had it locked in tonight too for the latter part of their feature.  The back end of the show is cleaning up FAST.

That said, I'm not sure the percussion is cleaning up as fast as the rest of the corps. Their book is .... frankly ambitions as h_ll.  But there was fuzz in it here and there. It's not terrible by any means, it just sort of sticks out.  I dunno if they'll take the hose to it a bit so they can play clean as we approach Allentown or keep trying to clean it.  It's been a discussion about BD's battery book recently.  I also dunno if it's a 'weakness' to exploit necessarily but given that Cadets and Cavies lines are able to play WELL above where their corps tier is, and Bloo is able to best them in percussion too on some nights...yeah their ordinal may end up being...a bit weird if they can't get it cleaner.  And given that drum judges will use the tenth of a point to separate lines, falling down the ordinals can mean...a fair few tenths potentially. 

This is not a dig on the Blue Devils! I'm aware that its probably the most critical thing I've said in this review. The only reason i'm bringing it up here is because it was asked about in the previous discussion.  The other corps have their caps and issues as well.  BD can win outright and by a point+ even with the drums not fully cleaning their book. it's just frankly kind of weird to see a BD section be somewhat inconsistent at all...let alone in August. 

Cadets

This is a home show and home crowd for Cadets and they always turn it up a notch with the crowd response.  Allentown is another venue like this and this is part of why Cadets tend to have a 'bounce' about this time of year, which, if they can carry as momentum into Indy, does them well.  The crowd was vocal for them taking the field and anticpating the opening hit for sure.  When they hit it, there was crowd roar that came right into it.  The kids definitely felt that and fed off that energy!  They were on fire!

Two things on Cadet's viz this year. On Flo, the exposed ankles bother me at times because it seems that while they all end 'x inches above the ankle' the fact that some people have longer legs mean the pants end at different heights from the ground.  On Flo...its almost hyper visible...parituclar up close.  Live form the stands...its a total non issue.  The visual continuity down the leg to the feet is clear and the white reads like the classic cadets light pants in so many ways.  Their feet are getting MUCH cleaner too! 

Second, the props made more sense (finally!) in person.  Tonight they finally stuck out as "Oh! These are the mountains around Mt. Olympus."  They are at times an entire mountain range, and at other times in the S from above, reading from the stands like a clustered mountain peak with varied highs and lows on the way to the summit.  This said, they do sort of just 'sit there' in their various formations.  There was more narration but as mentioned, there was a speaker issue so it seemed sort of muddy narration wise. 

Overall the theme reads less as an 'all sports show' and more on the Atlas mythology in a "show of strength" that appears in various athletic posing and such.  Note the ballad, while the horns are being lovely and that soloist is mesermizing us...the battery is over to side one in a bicep flex for days...hah!  (Although I do wish they were doing some light playing under parts of the ballad, they have the "percussion breaks are for percussion and ballad is for brass" arranging.  Which works for them obviously.  Percussion was ON FIRE tonight.  They had that section where they get in the judges face up front and just laid it down.  People around me who were clearly 'drum people' were bouncing out of the seats a bit as the hit the punctuaion mark and flexed before marching back into the field.  

Last thoughts...

 

On the drive home, what show was playing in my head?  Mandarins, interestingly enough.  I think of all the shows I heard tonight, Mandarins have not just 'musical moments' that are memorable but really good musical transitions that make that whole show a soundtrack to what they're doing.  

The race for 5-7 (maybe 8 as well) is going to be incredible.  

 

Phenomenal review! Thanks again for all the pics! We really appreciate it!

[KVG_DC]

Oh also!

Jersey Surf had a QR code up on their booth "March on the field with us free in 2024!"  

I'm not sure, but I think they had that going on this year too?   I dunno how they're doing it but i sense they're making a 'communty corps' niche for themselves with the Mobile Music Lab thing along with leverging their non-profit base into making themselves an "accessible to all" activity group.  

Which is really cool.  I mean, ring chasers and ladder climbers aren't going to touch Jersey Surf, and they know that.  But what they seem to be carving out is a "let's be the corps where kids that simply cannot afford to do World Class...can."  And that's really worth trying to do in my opinon.  

Unlike some years I've seen from them, they're giving those kids a good challenge and instruction.  I saw them working out in the 'lot' before the show and was noticing how the instructional staff was working good fundamentals with them even as they prepped for performance with a LOT of people milling around as they were the only corps warming up on site since they went on first. 

So...if you wanna break into the activity or have kids who do. Give Surf a look!  I'm sure the "free" doesn't extend to getting there for camps and auditions or what not, but perhaps even for that if someone from West wanted to do it, they might find a way to help them out given the spirit of the corps working to make themselves financially free. 

[chris ncsu]

I see you, Cadets GE score...