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DCI Southwestern Afternoon Show Review


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(Part 2 is coming tonight)

Not for the faint of heart – this is long!

Okay, here’s my Southwestern Championship review. I’m posting it in two parts, afternoon and evening. I’ll start at the very beginning.

We dropped off my 8 month old baby girl with her grandmother in Austin at 10am. We arrived in San Antonio about 11:45am. Parked at the Rivercenter Mall Parking Garage (I guess a lot of people don’t know you can park there – it’s $8.50 for the day, but it’s covered, attached to the mall and about a 5 minute walk from the Alamodome). We stuck around the mall and ate bad Chinese food. At 12, we started over to the dome – got there at 12:10 or so. The Alamodome is hosting America’s Team in their training camp starting next week, and there’s a huge sign on the windows of the corner facing the highway advertising the fact.

We get up to the dome, and there’s a handwritten (magic marker on copy paper) sign on each door that says, “No Cameras Allowed.” Furthermore, Alamodome personnel are checking every single bag of every single person and confiscating the offending cameras/video/mp3 recorders, and will give them back after the show. (They give you a claim ticket. You should have seen the stack of stuff inside!)

I don’t want my camera confiscated, and I don’t want to go back to the car and miss the corps. Soooo, we pulled an end-around on the poor attendant. Basically, we snuck by when he was checking another bag. I didn’t want to break the rules anymore than I did so far, so the camera stayed in my wife’s bag for the rest of the afternoon show, and back in the car that night. So, no pictures. DCI is to be faulted for that. They really are. I wanted to get pics of the souvie trucks, the personnel, the corps members in the hallways, the CAVALIERS DM WHO CONDUCTED AMERICANADA IN THE SEAT BEHIND ME! I do understand their reasoning – especially for this show, which was to be recorded anyways, but I wasn’t happy. I wanted the dcp DVD’s soooo bad! :) Was gonna submit a photo essay.

Didn’t really get time to hit the souvie booths thanks to the delay at the entry, and Jenna and I found our seats (49 yard line, row 25 of the lower deck – about 7 rows or so under the press box) just after the onfield warmup for:

Revolution (1st place Division II - 66.15). Still moving up the ladder, the hometown corps presented their show “Celestial Mysticisms” featuring works that have been done by top 6 Division 1 corps (Montage – BK2000 and Ballet Sacra – Cadets 1993). I’m normally not a big fan of that type of programming from a Division II/III corps, much like when Lone Star played En Fuego (Madison’s drum feature in ’96) as their opener in ’97. For most fans who have seen some corps, there can’t help but be comparisons. (In retrospect, though, I have to admit that their Landscapes show last year was one of my favorites, even though it used some recycled tunes as well.) Anyways, no matter what I thought of the music choices, they did a wonderful job in playing them. The brass had a warm tone throughout, the drums – while never really getting too much into a groove – carried the corps along quite nicely, and the guard did what my wife said was a pretty good job for a Division III corps. Despite my lack of enthusiasm for what they were playing, they sold it very well. Our dcp polls have had them flirting with the 6th spot in Division III, and I think that’s accurate, if even a little low for them! After the performance, Dan Potter interviewed John Rodriguez, who said that they plan to grow, but are going to wait until the financial situation is strong enough to allow it. Bravo! Here’s hoping that we get to continue watching this corps grow and improve for many years to come.

No national anthem or anything for the afternoon show – just straight to the corps.

Kiwanis Kavaliers (9th - 69.40) led off. Their show, “Hall of Justice,” presents music from G-Force (I think that was it), Spider Man, Flash Gordon, some tribal thing that I couldn’t name if you paid me to, and Batman. My wife liked the guard, even though there were some ensemble problems and a few drops. She thought the total show concept was great, and that they sold it with such enthusiasm that it ought to make up for some of the dirt in the show. I agree – we both had them over Southwind. Wow – what a large drum section. The tribal dance with the drum feature was great – whole corps dancing around. The energy was palpable off of this corps, and you couldn’t help but feed off of it. After the more laid back Kavaliers of the last few years, this was a welcome change. If they can continue to bring these kinds of shows to the field, they will start moving up the ranks.

Next to perform was Southwind (8th - 73.35). The show was entitled “Evolution,” and contained Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, March Slav, Prelude, and Esprit de Corps. To sum this one up, it was a fairly clean show, but it lacked passion. Felt technical rather than artistic. Some of that has to be blamed on the musical choices; Southwind seems to be searching for an identity. I don’t mind the classical music from the last two years, but quit sprinkling the band music into it! Ruins what flow was being built. Okay, I’ve got that off of my chest now. My wife doesn’t like the yellow uniforms, but I think they look great in the artificial light. The black drums look deeper and they yellow brighter. One advantage of a dome show – more vivid color.

An aside – the dome plays merry havoc with corps’ musical programs. The bass can get amplified by all recognition, the upper voices can get lost in the shuffle and the drums can, without that much effort, just make your ears bleed. I really do think that a lot of the mixing problems that we heard can be blamed on the peculiar acoustics of the Alamodome. If they’d had a couple of days to practice there beforehand, I bet the sounds we heard would have been a lot different.

Back to Southwind – Toccata and Fugue does have some spark to it, but March Slav is the highlight of the show. The guard (who were dirty, but so was just about everyone in the afternoon show) had more enthusiasm, the drumline started to click better, and the hornline picked up the energy. After that, it sort of dropped back down. I really think that Southwind is a potentially explosive corps waiting to happen, just as soon as they can figure out what they’re trying to do musically. It won’t be this year, but I bet they do figure it out eventually. Oh yeah, the drums all had little splash cymbals mounted on the sides, and that made for some neat sound effects.

Next up was the Troopers (11th - 67.10). Casper’s finest throw down with “Red, White and Blue: the American Spirit.” The show contains Javelin, An American Elegy and Into the Storm. (As a fun game, play “Which one of these doesn’t fit?”) The first thing that both my wife and I commented on was just how *small* they were. Made me sad. They’re the Troopers, for crying out loud! People should be lining up to get in. <sigh> To the show. They did a great job of selling Javelin. They really did. And that’s pretty high praise, considering that I heard it from 3 different corps during the two events. I wasn’t familiar with An American Elegy, but they did (surprisingly!) put out a fair bit ‘o volume during it. Into the Storm was okay, but that was about all you can say about it. Again, I think it was the repertoire choice rather than performance faults. My wife did comment that they do a great job of making the male guard members look macho through their choice of attire. I agree – hard to look anything else in this corps. :) The white drums gave a bright and clean look, especially since hardly anyone uses plain white anymore. I hate to sound like an old fogey, and I’m not even old, but I wanted to see the sunburst. They finished Javelin in the form to do it, so why not just DO it? The beginning of the ballad felt incomplete when they just wandered off out of it. The best thing I can say about the Troopers, though, is this – even though they placed 11th, they didn’t *feel* like an 11th place corps. The competition was just that good. More “what everyone else did better” than “what Troopers did wrong.” Oh yeah, the visual judge got caught in a collapsing circle of 5 or 6 guard members who were revolving around a drummer. He had to actually crawl out to get away. Poor guy. Glad I’m not a judge – I don’t envy them having to run around for 24 performances. Oh yeah – the pit did this thing before the show where the guy on the left end tapped fists with the person next to them, and on down the line to the timp player on the right, who looked at the guy on auxiliary, surrounded by all of his equipment, and just waved at him like, “never mind.” It was funny!

An emotional moment for us - Spirit (4th - 80.40) was on next. Jenna knew Jason Lowe (fmm Spirit, passed away 2001) very well. He was supposed to come down and see the Southwestern show with us last summer, but he was too sick to travel. Jenna’s a cancer survivor, so she knew firsthand what he was going through. She didn’t think she could watch Spirit, so she went to get concessions. I felt I could watch, so I stuck around to see what they were up to this summer.

I’m glad I did – this is, no question, a finalist corps. First really meaty drum parts of the afternoon, and the hornline took the volume up a notch. The show is “Darkness Into Light” which is a nicer way of saying, “Easter Symphony, mvt 3: Symphonia Resurrectus.” Let me get the bad out of the way – the opener is an awful song. It’s performed very crisp – Finalist crisp – but it’s just discordant, rhythm driven music that I’ll be darned if I could detect a real melody in. Honestly, though, considering the subject matter, I think that’s the point. Speaking of Darkness Into Light, my opinion of them went that way after they started the ballad. Beautiful. Gorgeous. Insert word here. Major props to the cymbal player doing the Jesus pose on the right 30 (complete with another holding up a cymbal behind his head as the halo) who kept his arms out for a good two minutes. You try holding a 3-liter coke in each hand out at your sides and see what it feels like. The more I got into the ballad, the more I got convinced that the opener was meant to be so … well, ugly, of music. The closer also gets major points from me by beginning with a recap of the ballad. That’s a great way to both tie your show together and let the audience know that we’re arriving at the conclusion. The guard did take their jackets off and reveal brighter tops, but it wasn’t as much of a change in overall color as I was expecting. So to recap – bad opener, but the rest of the show more than makes up for it.

The unenviable task of following Spirit was given to Pioneer (10th - 67.25). Read a lot about them this summer – including the online journal – so I was curious as to how this was going to go. And before I start – Jenna hates the musical. The musical in question is “Oliver.” Pioneer played Where is Love?, Be Back Soon, Consider Yourself, Oliver, As Long as he Needs Me, and Who Will Buy. (I’m reading from the official summer program here – a bargain at $10, I might add – and I think a couple of those pieces didn’t end up in the show I saw.) From where we were sitting, the picnic tables were a success. They did a great job of focusing your attention on their little piece of real estate in front of the hashes and between the 30’s. From a high-angle, though, I don’t know if it’d have been received so well. But that’s what I saw, so I say it worked! Despite the small corps, Pioneer’s greatest asset has to be their enthusiasm. Their energy level sells the show. The guard – again, like everyone in the afternoon – seemed to be a bit off, but not enough to make you go, “Ugh.” 3 pit or cymbal members joined the tom line in the opener and closer with what looked like tri-toms with a 6” quint added to them. What’s up with that? I also thought that the guard had non-matching uniforms, but they all had the same thing on down here. Was that a recent addition? As much as I normally don’t like individual variation, dressing them as dirty urchins would have worked better! I’m sure there’s more details that I’m not remembering, but it was a nice, solid performance. I’d have had them closer to Southwind. The aforementioned visual judge got smacked again. Heh.

Blue Knights (3rd - 81.35) took the field next, with a show entitled, “Fear and Trembling.” The music is from two piano concertos, by Shostakovich and Barber. I saw this show twice, so I’ll limit my initial impressions to what I was thinking at the time. Dark, dark, dark. Corps and guard are dark. Pit’s scattered across the front 3rd of the field. Then they started playing. Holy cow, was everyone online up to now wrong! The dcp polls and various score comparisons have had them sitting about 15th all summer. Not after this performance. Whether it was the changes they made or just being “on”, they blasted the roof right off of the dome! The unquestioned highlight of their performance – the entire visual package. Not the drill, but the visual. There’s always *something* going on in this show. Simply amazing guard work and horn dancing. Musically, I feel about them much like I did about Spirit – terrible arrangement / choice of opener, but boy does it get better after that. The keyboards getting moved around are actually pretty unobtrusive, and the corps and guard moving in and out of them makes for some great effects. First thing my wife said to me, “Do you see that tall guard guy!” Heh. Yeah – we’ve already talked about him in threads online. The guard uniforms actually work – after a while, you forget that they’re almost completely sheer. They also did an interesting feat, which was use those rather revealing outfits and not make the guard try to act “sexy.” See my comments on Cascades below. Most of us in our little section thought that they’d won the afternoon show hands down. Even over Boston. If they can continue to keep this energy level up, they will be a finalist. Wow. I’m still glad I’m not a judge, and has to decide which of these wonderful performances is not going to advance. (Plus the aforementioned heart attack that I’d have had on the field from running around so much.) And believe me when I say that – ‘cause I’ve now seen them all back-to-back. This is such an “up” year for DCI. Wow. Dan Potter interviewed “Tiny” the contra player (290 lbs and plays football) after the show. Heh. Nice guy.

Next up were the Seattle Cascades (2nd - 82.85). Their show, entitled “City Riffs,” contains Profination, Simple Song, Prelude, Fugue and Riffs and Make Our Garden Grow. I’d heard many times online about how they were both the stunner this year and using recycled Cadets music. Well, yes and no to both. They were good, no question, and had the first really big drill moves of the afternoon (their spinning triangle block at the end of the opener – wow!), but they didn’t quite grab me the way I thought that they would. Nicest guard outfits – everyone in business attire – so far. Until they took the tops off and started the whole, “look at me, I’m sexy” thing. Didn’t really work. If we’re doing a show about city life, well, people don’t normally act like that. Anyways, just didn’t grab me. I liked the baldrics from last year’s uniforms better, I think. The green was a nice splash of color. Now don’t get me wrong – I did like the show. I just didn’t think that they were quite as good as the judges did. But, I’m glad they’re doing so well, and hope they keep it up. Percussion seemed to be more of a strength than the brass, which is more of a compliment to the drums than a criticism of the brass, ‘cause they were on fire! Jenna and I both did have them advancing, but in 3rd. Good, solid program, but on this day it was BK’s world and everyone else was renting space. (I can’t believe that I just wrote that…)

Was starting to get hungry about this point. An intermission would have been nice, ‘cause I’m not going to miss anyone if I can help it. Jenna commented that the guard uniforms are much improved this year as well as general flag design. There also seems to be a trend of a lot of corps using a flag on each hand with short poles. Anyways, back to the performances.

Up next were the Boston Crusaders (1st - 84.90), presenting “You are my Star.” The program contains Appalachian Spring, You are my Star, some Artie Shaw piece, and more Appalachian Spring. Nice new uniforms – very clean looking, beautiful guard uniforms and nice distinctive new drums. Hope they keep ‘em. For the Appalachian Spring opener, what can you say about a piece that’s been played so many times by so many corps? The oft-discussed quote banners work a lot better than I thought they would. It was a good design choice by the visual team – they made you look at the section of field that they wanted to highlight. You are my Star was a very pretty piece, even if they sang a good portion of it. Jenna thinks they must have a choir teacher on staff, (she’s a singer) ‘cause they sang with good tone and intonation. More quotes – nicely done. One of them, however, did break off of it’s roller. They fixed it for the late show – glad to see. Those things must be expensive! The battery unrolls pictures of 20th century America during the ballad – Jackie Robinson, Martin Luther King, Marilyn Monroe, et cetera. We both agreed, though, that we’d have left the last two pics off, which were a fireman from 9/11 and JFK Jr. saluting at the funeral procession. Didn’t really fit. Especially when you go into a big band piece less than a minute later. The big band number (whatever it’s name was – what, is it classified?) was great! Hornline did a lot of dancing in place – was both funny and fun. Some of the battery played on a rack of trap set equipment. Only complaint – and it’s minor – if you’re going to do that, don’t leave guys out. Who ever heard of a big band jazz number from a corps where 5 snares had to park on the sideline and not play? (Forgive my earlier comment about the jazz piece’s name – here it is in the program. Concerto for Clarinet.) The closer from Appalachian Spring is presented in two parts, Shaker Dance and … well, whatever you want to call the quiet, reflective part that people always tag on the end of it. Nice move at the end when they lay down and form an American flag. We were so low, it took about 10 seconds to register what they were doing.

Three more to go, then I could shop and eat! Carolina Crown (6th - 79.45) was up, presenting “Greek Mythology: Stories of Gods and Heroes.” Music as Medea, Javelin (take no. Two – see Troopers), One Day I’ll Fly Away and an original piece based sort of on Medea. I asked my wife, who doesn’t read anything about corps online, what she thought of the male guard members’ outfits. “I think that’s appropriate – it *is* a Greek show,” was the response. ‘Nuff said. Neat column props on the field. I was skeptical about this production, ‘cause nobody’s really tried to get too close to Medea since 1993. I wouldn’t, either. But, Crown does a great job of presenting the music (mostly *different* parts of the ballet) without evoking comparison. If you’ve never heard the source music, you’re not going to know that they and Star of Indiana shared music from it. Neat lightning bolt props. Like I keep saying, dirty guard, but right in line with everyone else so far. Javelin seemed a bit truer to the original than the other two versions I heard. The whole Eros thing was cleverly done. And they used bows to shoot sabers to other guard members! Fun. The Moulin Rouge ballad, to me, is the highlight of the show. Beautiful brass sounds. The soloist got overpowered by the hornline, but I think that was a casualty of dome acoustics. Well, and the battery just clobbered everyone in the volume contest, which was a bit annoying, but again – dome acoustics. I’m certain that it blends better outside. I missed them last year (wife was pregnant, so we had to leave the show early), so I hadn’t seen the black pants in person yet. They looked good. Jackets are starting to look a little dated, though. Overall, I thought that they were good, and I’ll like watching them on the videos, but as it stands right now they’re not a Finalist corps. This year, the competition is just too good. Now that I’ve said that, they’ll go on a tear and storm right up. :)

We’re starting to get a bit fatigued. The Alamodome seats are made for people from a planet with more gravity than Earth’s, and are thus smaller than Earthlings. That’s the only explanation I can think of. This year, we did have a bunch of staff members up behind us and around us, but they were much more well behaved than last year.

Okay, next was the corps my wife was dying to see, the Madison Scouts (5th - 80.25). After everything I’ve read about them, I was scared to see them. The show is called, “Conquest!” and contains Captain from Castille, Asturias, an original drum feature and Conquistador/Save El Dorado. Okay, let’s get into it. First off, the guard armor looked fine. Those and the big drums seemed a little excessive for a warmup that wasn’t going to be scored, but if that’s what they want to do, fine by me. They did the company front, but not the fleur-de-lis. Well, until they sprung a surprise one in the first 10 seconds of the show. I spent most of the show not watching my beloved drumlines, but the guard, to see what was the problem. All I can say is, I didn’t see anything glaring. A lot of little stuff, but no major breakdowns. (Well, one major breakdown – in the ballad, the guard guy on the right end was one count off of everyone else for something like 12 measures.) And honestly, their guard wasn’t any worse than everyone else’s in this early show. The corps’ marching technique seemed passable – I didn’t see any major phasing in the feet. The only *major* problems that I could tell is that there aren’t as many big drill moves as there are in their other shows, and that the music’s a bit blah. Not as exciting as what they’ve done before. The timp / tom feature was amazing, but they didn’t do a good job of highlighting it for you – you had to know where to look. The capiera fight was cool, but short. Made me wonder what the Cavies’ “Fight Club” was going to look like later. And the X-Guard was underutilized, big time. One latin-rhythm feature/background rhythm in the entire show, at least that I saw. Anyways, overall they were solid, if not as exciting as in years past. They still do throw down that energy and get a good vibe going. Jenna and I had them in a virtual tie with Spirit for 4th.

The last corps in the afternoon show were the Colts (7th – 79.25). Their show, entitled “Revelations,” contained Dawn, Concertino for 4 Percussion, Be Thou My Vision and New Century Dawn. Guard unis were nice colors, but the flared parts attached to the hips made everyone look wider than they really are. And that’s weird next to corps uniforms that make everyone look taller. I was humming along with Concertino for a good minute before it occurred to me that Crown did it last year. I don’t have a whole lot to say about this show, really. It’s nice, but it doesn’t grab you quite like last year’s did. The brass, guard and drums weren’t spectacular, but they weren’t bad, either. They were just … nice.

The retreat took forever, and was DM only. I liked that the Madison DM escorted Southwind’s DM (Marjorie Bielat) arm-in-arm, and that he also went to attention when she presented her salute. Very classy. Were Jenna and I picking, we’d have had the top 4 as the Blue Knights, Boston Crusaders, Seattle Cascades and a coin toss b/w Spirit and Madison. I don’t know what they put in the water in Denver, but they must have brought some of it with them to Texas. You thought Seattle beating Madison was stunning, we were all astounded after seeing the Blue Knights’ performance. This was one of those that I’m going to remember for a long, long time. Magnificent.

SCV did the clinic, but we saw the Cadets in 2000, and unless you’re on the field, you might as well go watch an electric meter or paint dry. So……Yay! Shop, shop, shop. Eat, eat, eat. Finally got to hit the souvie booths. Kiwanis was MIA. Never did hear what happened to them. BK had bins of stuff just sitting out, and you could look for yourself – never seen that before. They also had a *lot* of stuff. Crown had a lot of generic drum corps stuff, but not a lot that was “theirs.” Boston had a neat baby t with the Lion Rampant, but they didn’t have an 18 month size. Spirit did, though, have a baby shirt that says, “Baby Blue” on it. I got it for Madeleine . She’s wearing it today – I’m going to take a pic and send it to Spirit. Heh. Spirit also had a shirt that said, “Spirit – No Amplification Required.” Too funny! Good for them. Also got Maddy a “Phuture Phantom” T. Has a cartoon chevron with a smile on it. Too cute. The Phantom Bobblehead is just plain… odd. Cool, but odd. SCV’s hockey jersey is to die for if you have that much money.

Speaking of, I saw three different corps that had the staff members wearing hockey jerseys with their year numbers and names on the back. Unusual trend, but I thought it was too cool!

The Cadets and Crossmen didn’t have much merchandise out, and what they did have was fairly standard. Colts were tucked in behind the Cavies, and had only a few items. The DCI booth had … dum, dum, duuuuum. DVD’s. Bought ’90 and ’92. Watched them already, too. Lady at the booth told the guy next to me that the 2002 DVD’s were expected by Xmas, and the vids in November. So if DCI says Xmas, plan on spending your tax refund on them, ‘cause it’ll be about that time. :) Instead, I got a “Property of Cavaliers” shirt. Madison had nice shirts if you like colorful ones. I did see the poster, Andrew, and it was okay, but I was hoping for one with photos on it. Cavies had a huge selection of stuff, and it was kind of surprising to see that they were the busiest. As I noticed later as well, you can say what you like about their shows the last few years, but the average fan on the street loves them! However, all I wanted was a 2001 championship shirt in XXL, and was told that they were all gone. I got my 2000 one at the ’01 San Antonio show, so I was bummed. If any Cavies are reading and have an XXL one they want to get rid of, I’ll take it! :) Revolution got the prime spot up by the front doors, but was out of last year’s tour shirts in XXL. Wish I’d bought one then. They were nice. Blue Devils had a rather small sampling of merchandise out, considering their incredibly diverse lineup. Didn’t buy a drum shirt from them this year (first time since ’96 or ’97). I just didn’t like the pattern. Glassmen have a series of shirts that say, “Boring,” “Boring our way into your hearts” and “BorinBb – we took the G out of Boring.” Heh. Way to take the offensive in that little argument. They also had a surprisingly varied lineup of merchandise, and very high quality at that. The bowling shirts are great! I bought a Bluecoats drummer shirt as well – it has what looks like a watercolor photo of one of their drummers on the front. Very classy.

END OF PART ONE

(Coming in Part 2: Dinner, the evening show, the victory concert and getting stranded on the highway at 1 am. - Mike)

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THAT WAS AWESOME....can't wait for part II.....getting popcorn ready.....

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Great review Mike!

Spirit's show, especially the opener that you disliked, is arranged nearly identical to Holsinger's Easter Symphony. Holsinger himself was very supportive of the corps playing his music, and if I remember correctly, even came to JSU this winter/spring and met with Spirit's and the university's staff.

I wasn't too thrilled about the music selection back in the winter, and I didn't like it even up until the first show at Jax State, but when I saw and heard them, I was surprised at how well the corps "sold" it, and yes, I began to like it. From reading the reviews this season thus far, most people have enjoyed the show.

Spirit has their work cut out for them, staying on top of this very tough pack of corps. I have faith in the baby blue!

Again, thanks for the review!

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