2025 Favorite Shows

[Rh4wk3r]

Two of my favorites are Blue Stars and Spirit of Atlanta.  Both are extremely entertaining and have great drill, music, and choreo while keeping the audience engaged.  Both of these have finals potential!

[Drumcorpsgal]

Boston Crusaders are my favorite by far. What an incredible show! Their opening number is fantastic, followed by terrific drum numbers, beautiful Ballard and a tremendous closing experience. Horns, drums, colorguard are all the best!
 I also like the Cavaliers and the Madison Scouts.

[777hornman]

favorite show - Crown , Bluecoats,BD

 Cleanest -Boston , Colts 

Hippest - Crossmen 

question mark ?  - Scv , Phantom , Boston , Madison 

loudest amps - Spirit 

best use of electronics - Mandarins , Bluecoats 

No drill - Blue stars , Spirit 

Best musical book - Crown , Phantom 

Please play more - Boston , PC , 

Worst props - Crossmen ,Crown ,phantom 

Best prop - Bd , Bluecoats , 

favorite  drum line - Cavies , Scv

favorite brass - bd , Crown  

 

[Precious Roy]

My favorites from early on this year (in no particular order): 

Bluecoats, Boston, Spirit, Phantom, Music City, Spartans. 

Shows that grew on me by mid/late season (or having seen them live):

Crown, Blue Devils, Troopers, Blue Stars.

Honorable mention to Memphis Blues, for making the initial jump to Open Class, and putting on an enjoyable show.

[Metalbinky]

My favorites are my kids corps - Pacific Crest and Blue Devils (can you blame me?).

But truthfully, I love every single one of the corps.  Imagine having just one epic drum corps that scored 100 every night.   Just one epic show and nothing else.   How boring would that be?  

Thank you to every single member, every single support person, every designer, every educator.   Love all of you!  

 

[Rh4wk3r]

17 hours ago, 777hornman said:

No drill - Blue stars , Spirit 

LOL, both have 3 times the drill that Bluecoats has.  Seriously, create a spreadsheet and track drill to scatter ratios.  You will be shocked!!!


Just rewatched first few minutes of Spirit and Bluecoats

First 4 min of Bluecoasts: 50 seconds of drill, the rest scatter and pushing apparatuses around

First 4 min of Spirit: Over 3 minutes of drill and only a couple of scatters.

I would watch more, but it's unneeded. 

Don't get me wrong, I love the Bluecoats but just disappointed that drill and formations has largely vanished.  They've basically copied the BDs strategy from the last several years of run, group-up, blow, run group-up, blow.  They sound great, especially the soloists.  Heck, Josh is amazing!!  Someone to watch in the coming years!

Edited August 6, 2025 by Rh4wk3r

[David Hill]

Unity, infinity, and wholeness: if we take the simple circle for its symbolism, then its ubiquitousness in drum corps this season just might speak to what the line-up of fine units was striving for.

Well that, and the big fat circular zeroes that follow sevens, eights, and nines on the score sheets. On that front, well done!

Fifty-six years in with the activity, I gave up scoring long ago. Drum corps is an essential entertainment pleasure in my life. I like what I like , no matter placement.

Take the Crossmen. Sure, “Crosswalking” never strolled up the sheets, but it did for me! Good on them.

But let’s take it from the top, my five biggest pleasures, then five more, and a couple of others.

“The aVANt GUARD,” as performed by the resurgent Santa Clara Vanguard, is precisely why I fell in love with drum corps in the first place. The activity zigged, Vanguard zagged. There are so many ways to brand an organization; so this infinity moment for the Vanguard — Ouroboros, if you will — hypnotized me from its first showing through finals night.

On our feet is often the rallying cry from the stands, but this year I stood in silence, and awe, that was the mesmerizing beauty of Phantom Regiment. Other worldly, for me (not trying to tell anyone else what to take away from the performance), I said it on first glance, the diaphanous curtains were as musical, and mesmerizing, as was the horn and percussion book.

How many times over five-plus decades have I heard “performance of the performers,” when classifying a unit. Slap it squarely on the Boston Crusaders, if you will, please. My mind went BOOM every time I watched them.

Turns out, so did the judges, offering the corps its first championship in its 85th anniversary year, including an Oscar-like night of awards for percussion, horns, music, and color guard.

A drum corps fan’s pure nirvana was the final 90 seconds of the Blue Devils gathering. Not that the preceding eleven minutes weren’t filled with Concord-isms that, mixed together here, made for some lively conversation!

It was Madison, Wisconsin, 1985, and a very VERY small corps with the abbreviated name Boston began to line up in Camp Randall Stadium. I was on the sidelines, it happened; likely trying to find someone to talk to a media outlet. The arrival of: an electric keyboard, small speaker, car battery, and wiring stopped me cold in my tracks. Just as it did the crowd when the percussion feature was a pretty great transcription of “Axel-F,” the theme song from “Beverly Hills Cops. And just as it did at score time, when a penalty was assessed. Not in drum corps.

Just yet. And yet, in 2025, it was the soundscape the Bluecoats engineered that stopped the activity cold in its tracks. Who can imagine where we go from here? I can hardly wait.

The next five corps I loved, start with another multi World Champion on the way back up, The Cavaliers, with arguably the handsomest production (think esthetics, I always do) on the field.

Mandarins grew on me, and by mid-season both the corps and I saw the potential in “If I Should Fall.” You caught me.

The musical book of The Troopers was the most spectacular in the corps history! There, I’ve said it, because I think it. With the trilogy melodrama complete, tears included (I’m old), I’m ready for the next (new) phase from Caspar.

Musical books were really important to my enjoyment this season, so add Carolina Crown’s glorious “Carmina Burana,” and the Blue Stars extended opening to Aaron Copland’s fine “Outdoor Overture.”

The Blue Knights found what all new-to-finals corps, or returning corps in this case, have: a theme to fully extricate, and practice, practice, practice.

My last mentions are hard ones, but for me they are important, because they deal with corps I have loved in as many iterations as I have freckles.

Colts surged back into finals four years ago with the exotic “Silk Road,” a look, sound, and feel that refreshened the corps as a perennial finalist. And then they returned to themes like the ones I thought they had left behind: 14-16th place, albeit performed at finalist level. I really do want more out of Iowa, only because the organization has given it to us.

I think we all want a big, brassy dose of Madison Scouts again. The current performers are up to the task, clearly; is the organization?

Okay, so this Alabama born and bred fellow (long retired to Florida) must give a shout-out to the Spirits of Atlanta, this year; both the competitive and alumni units. Thank you, both.

I’ll circle back to the top, and say that at 71, I have not enjoyed drum corps more than I do now. I still shake my head; how do they come up with, and do, THAT?

Oh, I get it! For MY infinite pleasure.

[lawdn]

On 8/5/2025 at 8:24 PM, Metalbinky said:

My favorites are my kids corps - Pacific Crest and Blue Devils (can you blame me?).

But truthfully, I love every single one of the corps.  Imagine having just one epic drum corps that scored 100 every night.   Just one epic show and nothing else.   How boring would that be?  

Thank you to every single member, every single support person, every designer, every educator.   Love all of you!  

 

And thank you to every parent of a MM!

[Narrow]

Boston Crusaders - BOOM

Santa Clara Vanguard - The aVANt GUARD

Phantom Regiment - 2025

Blue Stars - Spectating Sports

 

Enjoyed plenty of others, but these are the ones I found extraordinary.

[KPinCAL]

Troopers and BC