June 14th Oswego Review

[Boz Bozeman]

Hi everyone,

I was just glad that they were marching around yesterday. Here in the west suburbs of Chicago, it had rained on and off all day, rained while I was driving to the show, rained a little on some of the performers, rained during the victory concert, and rained after the show as I visited friends and relatives. This sort of played havoc on the show's organizers, as they had planned for parking in many of the grass fields around Oswego High School. I saw a couple of cars get stuck in the mud, and make huge ruts as they tried to get out. So it was a little messy there.

I'll just have one more show organization comment before getting to the meat-n-potatoes part of the show review. This year the Oswego show organizers decided to assign the bleacher seats to fans. This is fine, but many people could not find their seat rows or sections. So people sat wherever they wanted to anyway. It just seemed that the tickets only created long lines at the beginning of the show to get into the seats -- so long that some people couldn't get into their seats in time for the first few shows. I would prefer seating by section, without assigning seats within the section. That's just my humble suggestion.

I got to the stadium right as the show was beginning due to construction on Ogden Ave. as I was trying to drive to Oswego. So I hustled to my mediocre seats (35 yard line on side 2, 10 rows up), sat down on the bleachers and instantly had soaked my jeans all the way through. Great. These shows better be good. I wasn't disappointed.

Unfortunately, I don't have scores. I do remember the placements and I'll give them right here. This was the first show Phantom Regiment, Kingsmen, Glassmen, and BK. Madison and Capital Sound have had shows. The Chicago Royal Airs had a standstill last week in Madison. OK -- shows.

Kingsmen -- First on were these fellows from Joliet. They played a remix of My Favorite Things, a drum solo, songs from The Mask of Zorro, and closed with I Believe I can Fly, the R. Kelly tune. Without going into what I feel about the recent scandal involving R. Kelly, I love this little corps that could. I want to hug all those members. They are extremely cute and put out a ton of effort. I think they have more members this year than they have in the past. I feel that this group performs a great service to th community of Joliet. They finished sixth.

Capital Sound -- The Capital Sound were the next up Their numbers were also up, with what seemed like a full sized corps. They performed a show of classic rock, opening with Elton John's Funeral for a Friend. While the corps was performing, I found myself humming along unable to place the tune until someone a few rows above started singing to the song (like a candle in the wind...) and then it all clicked. I should've looked in the program, I guess. Their drum solo had some tasty parts, and I felt like the marching was coming along nicely for this time of year. The colorguard featured fluorescent green pillowcases (that's the best way that I can describe it) that some members step into and stretch around. It gives them a sort of Casper the friendly ghost look which was odd at the beginning but I felt worked well and won the audience over by the end of the second piece.

Their ballad "draws on melodies from Pink Floyd's On the Turning Away." It was nice, but I felt that it may have not connected with the audience as well as some of the other portions of the show.

The closer was Kansas' rock anthem Carry on my Wayward Son. Interestingly, the first drum corps show I ever saw also featured this song -- Northern Aurora 1993. So I have some pretty fun memories of this on the field. It was very fun -- people singing along, a little fun with the "guitar" solo. This show will put them in good shape when it comes time for Div. II finals at DCM. They'll slug it out again this year for top honors. This corps finished fifth.

WOOO!! Next up was Phantom Regiment. I'm an unbelievable homer for PR. I'll try to keep my pants on though. My family would not enjoy that scene. It's back to Shostakovich, performing a show which I had predicted for some time on Bus 2. The "theme" of the show is Four Heroic Sketches -- Oppression, Introspection, False Hope, and Victory and Celebration. The uniforms are in a similar style to the previous years, but with a black sash replacing the red one. They featured the always flattering scrubbing bubbles look. The guard uniforms were excellent, in my opinion. They were purple Cossack-ish uniforms with red highlights, with red sports bras underneath.

The opener was taken from the 10th Symphony, 2nd Movt. Shostakovich intended this as his musical portrait of Stalin, and was written just after his death. It's a freakin' whirlwind on the field, and devilishly hard. There is a ton of independence between the sections, with everyone doing their own thing. Every section has a huge technical burden to bear as well This will be a huge drum corps moment by finals. Right now, it's a little dirty both musically and visually. OK, a lot dirty. The potential is limitless, though. Shostakovich's signature D - S- C-H chord progression figures prominantly here. The guard has some very nice moments where everyone is handling a rifle. Very cool. Get it clean guys, and the sky's the limit.

The second and third pieces are taken from his second piano concerto. The second movement is the ballad. There are some very nice low brass ensemble playing here. I would like to give a special nod to the contras, who I felt were the best section musically out there. They had a great sound and projected out of the ensemble very well. I wish I could say the same about the baritones. Will this be another summer of stolen sack? I hope not. ;)^

One more thing -- the guard dances with some of the hornline. It's nice, but some of the hornline members could use a few grace lessons. But that was always a dream of mine, to be the contra that would be in the dance feature with like 6 or 7 guard members. Oh well... That's a lucky contra and he should appreciate it.

In the drum solo, the colorguard pulls out some Communist love and starts spinning shiny chrome sickles. That's cool. I always thought that if any corps were a bunch of communists, it would be the Regiment. Who always plays the Russian music?? Who's always fighting against the yoke of oppression from terrible Yankee imperialism? Never mind. Anyway, at some point the colorguard also removes their jackets to show some sweet, sweet skin. I appreciated this as a former hornline member. Honestly, though, I really liked the color scheme of the guard.

The finale is actually quite short and powerful -- almost like a coda to the show. It is taken from the finale of the 7th symphony. This piece was written after the Russians won the horrible siege of Leningrad in World War II. Shostakovich wrote it during the war and it was smuggled out of the Soviet Union to get to America, where it was played to some of the biggest concert audiences ever. It's a slow finale, which is dangerous (I've got bad memories from Pines of the Appian Way), but this one has a better buildup and is short enough that it doesn't wreck the momentum. And it's got some powerful moments.

All in all, this corps has got some work to do, as it does every year. They are quite dirty, but the show is there. They've got many powerful drum corps moments that will only get better, and this is a good start for them. I wish them the best of luck in the future. They finished second here.

The Glassmen came up next, performing their show Odyssey. It opens with a tympani on the goal line of side 2, a about midfield. They have a tasty drum intro accelarando here. The opener also features some good old Glassmen running their tails off. Jazz runs for everyone! I felt that this show was sort of a distant cousin to some of these great Cavalier shows of the past few years, with the music serving as a background to the marching, powered by some excellent drumming. I felt that they were the cleanest corps of the night visually. They definitely had the best individual marching technique. the hornline also had some Cadet-style runs that went from section to section. These'll get better as the season progresses.

Overall, I felt impressed by the Glassmen's show but not all that moved. This seems to be a frequent criticism of their shows, so I don't want to belabor this point other than to point it out. They'll be in good shape at the end of the season and I hope that they achieve all their goals at the end of the season. They were the evening's winners.

The Oswego High School Summer Band played during the intermission of the competition. I got a hot dog and talked to my bro in PR. One comment -- You gotta love the marching band that plays the P-funk. We gotta have that funk.

Madison fired it up after the Glassmen. They marched out looking large as usual, but this year, instead of making the traditional fleur-de-lis, they came out and played Conquest as their warmup. It was a good old-school moment. The show is entitled Conquest! (It's their exclamation point.) Their music is based upon conquerer and conquered, featuring Spanish and native Central and South American music. I'd have to say the emphasis is on the Spanish music, with some native percussion in the pit. There are a lot of great musical moments. I felt that the soloists were playing better than they have in a long time. The colorguard was also better than I feel they've been in past years, and I hope that trend continues. A nice touch was when 6 of the colorguard picks up some of the native percussion for the percussion feature. I liked the showcase of those members' versatility. Their marching however, left much to be desired, and I felt that the demand of the show may not have been that great. But I must remind myself that it's only June 15, and everyone's dirty now. This is a Finals show, but I'm not convinced that this show will get them back in the Top 6. I hope that they prove me wrong however. They finished third, with a 10 point drop from last week. This is the only score I remember -- 59.0. That's kind of a shocking drop, but hey -- I'm not making those decisions. They finished third tonight.

The final competing corps was the Blue Knights. This show, entitled Fear and Trembling (Fear and Loathing in Denver -- now that's a show title! But how to incorporate hallucinatory visions on the football field using only 135 members and colored flags? Let's get Cesario on it!), featured music "heavily influenced by Shostakovich's loathing of Stalin-era oppressiveness, followed by a haunting ballad from the same work." I know that this is a show review, but what does this mean? Is the music Shostakovich's? Is it so different that they can't call it his, like they call it cheese food instead of cheese? I don't know. Anyway, they were the second corps to present Shostakovich, and I think that they suffered in comparision. The audience did not like them as much PR. However there were some enjoyable moments during this show.

The first thing that I noticed was that the pit was moved out onto the field slightly, giving a sort of "stage" to feature sections. There was a space of about 20x10 yards created by the pit that was used in this way -- they had the colorguard dance feature there, as well as contra features and others. During their ballad, they made nice use of the SCV-style midsize brass ensembles using different postures to frame each group. I thought that this worked well. During this show, it started to drizzle slightly. Yuck. It got cold and nasty. This corps finished fourth, less than a point behind Madison.

The final performance of the evening were the Chicago Royal Airs Alumni Corps. What fun! They were huge (16 snare, a zillion sopranos, etc.) and played nicely to the crowd. It was good to get a taste of what drum corps was. They had all the trappings, including the starting gun, color presentation, standstill performance, and stuff that I don't even know because it's before my time. As a fun warmup, they did the West Coast warmup right at the corps that were lining up for retreat. The members appreciated it and were cheering and having a good time as well. This corps engaged the audience throughout with a good-old grip-n-rip mentality. I could detect some baritone abuse, but it was great fun. Only Madison and Phantom got as good of a crowd reaction. I'm excited to see these fellows again.

An interesting trend I saw was deeper tuning of the snares. Both Phantom and Glassmen are playing on snares that are considerably looser than in the past. I'm excited for another sweet, sweet drum corps season. Go Regiment! I'll see you guys again in Rockford for the Show of Shows. By the way, this show is consistently one of the best in DCM. If anyone in the Chicago area can stomach the 2 hour drive to Rockford, I'd highly recommend this show. Boylan is a great stadium to see drum corps, and the atmosphere is great.

All the best,

Javeed Shah

[Michael Oldemeyer]

Thanks for the review, J. I am seriously pumped up for Regiment's swing through Minnesota in two weeks. Sounds like a good show.

Michael Oldemeyer

[JT76]

Wow! Great review.

Thanks! :D

[RiverRat]

Thanks for the review! Great job!

I will also see Regiment in a couple weeks in Hastings. Cavies will be there too. I will be posting my first review here also!

B)

[radiosteele]

Well done!!

Rack him!

[PJS53]

Just curious if anybody else had been at the show and their impressions. A friend of mine who is a very knowledgeable drum corps guy said that many were shocked that Glassmen were ahead of Phantom and that Phantom clearly had a better show. Glassmen's guard show was not yet complete and yet managed to beat PR in guard. Any other opinions?

[Sluggo]

THANKS FOR THE REVIEW....makes me more pumped for the summer!!!!

[Boz Bozeman]

To PJS53 --

I think that Regiment does have a better show concept, but I feel that they may not have marched as well as Glassmen. I can't comment on the drums or guard scores. I believe (hope) that Regiment can pull ahead of G-men unless Glassmen have some tricks under their sleeves.

All the best,

Javeed

[Geoff]

The colorguard featured fluorescent green pillowcases (that's the best way that I can describe it) that some members step into and stretch around. It gives them a sort of Casper the friendly ghost look which was odd at the beginning but I felt worked well and won the audience over by the end of the second piece.

Ok, who the heck is writing over there???

My corps played Pink Floyd in 1991 and we used bags that sound exactly like you just described there. Ours were white, and the guard started the show inside them (actually, we carried the guard in, coffin-style), and then stretched them around and such.

Very coincidental... :)

[HappyMom8105]

The colorguard featured fluorescent green pillowcases (that's the best way that I can describe it) that some members step into and stretch around.  It gives them a sort of Casper the friendly ghost look which was odd at the beginning but I felt worked well and won the audience over by the end of the second piece.

Ok, who the heck is writing over there???

My corps played Pink Floyd in 1991 and we used bags that sound exactly like you just described there. Ours were white, and the guard started the show inside them (actually, we carried the guard in, coffin-style), and then stretched them around and such.

Very coincidental... :)

They are body socks or something like that. They're stretchy. I think they're funny.

Wait til ya see them this year. Very entertaining.

-Terri