TOC - San Jose, CA Review

[cobra]

Venue: I love Spartan Stadium. Nice field. Pretty nice sized front and backfield bletchers, not the best. But great place for a drum corps show none the less. No track, corps in your lap! (and sometimes on it!)

Weather: A clear, crisp 74 degree day in sunny California. (Waiting for those finals!)

Crowd: Wow... It was packed. Upper and Lower decks full (people litterally elbow to elbow.) I'd say easily 12-15k on hand. And there was no doubt they had been starving for a finals like event in Northern California. Phantom's pit got a nice obvation just for stepping onto the field. That's how ready this crowd was.

Individual Corps Review

in order of appearence

I will give scores and caption awards at the end of the review.

Phantom Regiment: There was one word to describe this performance. Okay... Two... LOW BRASS! Wow, their low brass line is amazing. Not to take anything away from the rest of the brass. I'm not a huge Phantom fan (don't shoot me), but they had a great total package. It was a beatuful show. The thing that sepeartaed Phantom from the top 4 tonight seemed to be quality. All the other corps (besides Madison) seemed much cleaner and seemed to have better drill packages. Musically, they are right on level, if not beyond most of the top 4. Beautifuly done Phantom!

Madison Scouts: The obvious underdog tonight as far as programs. But no doubt a crowd pleaser. I would have liked more of the show to be like the last 4 or so minutes, too many Ballad type moments for Madison. And from a show called Madisonic, that was kinda well... disapointing. But the corps pulled off what they were given with flying colors. Great hornline. As someone yelled before the first note "Blow my face off." They did their best to do that, especially in their Encore... Drill wise they took a step back from previous years, but it was still great. Judging from this loan performance, the Scouts are not yet "back." But there's no doubt in my mind they could be back!

The Cavaliers: It's about time they played some music out on the field! Okay, maybe they have played some decent music in the past. And they paired it with some AMAZING drill. but FINALLY!! The full package. This was the most accessable show of the night. Everyone knows who and what 007 is. And everyone knows what it's about. It was agreat Idea for the Cavies to put on the field and only the Cavies could pull it off like they did. Awesome, awesome Brass line! As always, a great visual package. Clean as clean can be and very well done. I'm not a cavies fan, but if they keep doing fan favoring shows like this, I may soon become one!

Santa Clara Vanguard: My personal favorite of the night. I'm a Vanguard fan yes, and I came into this show trying to hide that fact (even in my mind.) But I couldn't stop smiling. This is what Vanguard is about. A LOUD Hornline, with a great sound. Incredible Drum line and Pit. And the Color guard, Bravo SCV, this show had it all. No doubt one of SCVs best drill packages put on the field. The percussion was better then I expected, the brass a little less then I expected with a few horns sticking out here and there. But I want to say the phrase "If they only had another week" holds true. Vanguard was in my mind (and most of the people around me) the best corps of the night. And coming on AFTER the cavies, they held their own and more.

The Cadets: I wanted to hate this show. Just because of the clips I saw on the DCI site. But I didn't. Well... Let me rephrase that. I disliked the first 5 or so minutes with a passion. But from there on out, I loved it. I am going to agree with everyone and say this is a First place corps with a fouth place (very nearly a fifth place) package. They performed the crap out of that show and actually had me cheering! Color guard uniforms sucked. No offense, but I guess the theme is to blame for that. Musically they were great, very talented sections as a whole. Drill wise, a lot of the same recycled Cadets drill. But overall it was a good show.

Blue Devils: I loved the train theme. It was very clever... The Brass was amazing. Loud, crisp and clean. The best Brass line of the night. But the show was too show offy for me. The drill package was probably comparable to Madisons. What set them above Madison was how clean they were. Their music was a lot better then I expected. But in my eyes the Cavies and SCV had better music packages. BD no doubt has the swagger in their step. They are a confident bunch who performed their show as well as they could. The show was more of a feel good show I could bob my head to then what I would call Championship material. But I enjoyed the show and they did a great job!

Corps in Mass: Very very Impressive. By far the loudest thing I have ever heard in my life. And probably the best performance of Simple Gifts ever!! They were amazing. Great job by all the kids learning this so fast. A thank you to them for the Special gift. And sing sing sing! WOW... scretching trumpets echoing through the night! It was AWESOME!

Encore Performances

-Phantom played "Elsa's" and it was breathtaking. Beautifully played! Awesome brass sound as always from Phantom. A chilling moment which gave me goosebumps!

-Madison again played "Theme from Ice Castles" like in LA. What was great about this encore was the ending. At the end of their show the announcer said "I don't think they played loud enough, let's see if they give us more." Well they did, they held the last note for a good minute and a half. In this time the drum major ran up the lower level stairs, into the tunnel and up onto the edge of the second level. It was quite a crowd pleaser!

-Cavies played "Somewhere over the Rainbow" and I always love hearing that song coming from them. It's nice to hear them play a beautiful piece without moving around. A good change of pace from their field show.

-Vanguard started with "Send in the Clowns" and this brought the audience to their feet. It's a perfect arrangement and nobody can do it better. Then "UH OH!" hear comes the BOTTLE DANCE! The crowd was standing and cheering before they got 2 bars into the song. Awesome!

-Cadets... I'm still laughing as I think about it. Two trumpets, one baritone, one contra and one melo. They played a rendition of William Tell in which reminded me of a Blast! type moment. They would play and someone would show off, the other four would stop and stare and so on. It was a great show, and by far the most crowd pleasing moment of the night (next to the corps en mass.)

-Blue Devils played "Chase the Clouds away" and a 2 minute reprise of their show. Very well done and I didn't mind the reprise since it was my favorite part of their show.

a note about the instant encores. I think DCI should consider doing this at other shows. It keeps the pace going and is a great experience. Very enjoyable!

Scores and captions

using the new scoring system! ;)

1st: Santa Clara Vanguard - 97.750

2nd: The Cavaliers - 97.650

3rd: Blue Devils - 97.050

4th: The Cadets - 95.900

5th: Phantom Regiment - 94.250

6th: Madison Scouts - 90.200

GE: The Cavaliers (second: SCV)

Music: Phantom (second: Cavies)

Brass: Blue Devils (second: Phantom)

Percussion: Santa Clara (second: Cadets)

Color Guard: The Cavaliers (second: BD)

Final Thought

It was great to see the corps out west in August. The whole event was just breath taking. Everything went off without a hitch and the crowd obviously enjoyed it! Bring a Championship weekend here DCI!!!

Edited August 15, 2004 by cobra

[Schimmy]

Just wanted to add a few thoughts to your post, which I agree with for the most part.

Kudos to the guys running the show, first for bringing it out here and second for delaying the start for 10 minutes while the crowd finished getting to their seats.

The part I disagree with you is the placing you have the corps. I am an SCV alumnus and I love their show but it is still about 2 points behind the Cavies. BD was incredible and they well-deserved the second place finish.

I think my least favorite show of the night was the Cadets. It seemed like the staff wrote a horrible show and challenged the corps to still stay in the top 4. Execution was flawless but there really wasn't much to execute. I am usually a rather big fan of the Cadets but I did not like this show at all.

Your description of Madison was very accurate but I have always wondered why they can't write a decent middle part of their show. It always seems that they start and end well but the middle always kills any chance they would have of being great.

I had my doubts about a Bond show being champion material but that show was downright unbelieveable. While the brass may not have been as strong as BD they were very close. The overall package though had me and my friend shaking our head thinking "that is not possible".

They have raised the stakes for DC performances and if another corps wants to compete with them then they are going to have to elevate their visual programs while maintaining a very high quality. This is going to be very difficult to do and BD and SCV are the closest, but they have their work cut out for them if they hope to dethrone the Cavies.

[drums4u]

They have raised the stakes for DC performances and if another corps wants to compete with them then they are going to have to elevate their visual programs while maintaining a very high quality. This is going to be very difficult to do and BD and SCV are the closest, but they have their work cut out for them if they hope to dethrone the Cavies.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I agree. They have certainly raised the bar for visual in all aspects: drill writing, marching and execution of that amazing drill, and visual general effect. Starting next season, corps will have to really push the visual/drill envelope to top what the cavaliers put on the field these past few seasons.

I have to say, as far as drill is concerned, it seemed to me that Vanguard was next in line behind the Cavies. Great drill design. Difficult, challenging, and interesting stuff, but not performed nearly as well as the Cavies from an execution standpoint, and not nearly as much GE visual. They didn't have me saying "WOW!!"

Now musically speaking, SCV had me saying WOW all night long. Great percussion and brass book SCV, and the most beautiful guard I have ever seen!! I hope SCV builds on the amazing musical and colorguard aspects of this past year, and elevates their GE and visual packages to even greater heights in the season to come. I can't wait to see what their 2005 production will be.

[davland]

I had a great night, with one glaring exception. The hornline and drumlines warming up too close to and facing the stadium during Madison's show. From the upper deck, the ballad was completely and absolutely inaudible over the noise coming from the parking lot. The people around me were wondering if the music was some sort of backfield thing that was being played without the Scouts actually facing backfield. It was a huge distraction. One that in a regular (judged) show would have yielded penalties for sure. I think I know which hornline it was, but I'm not going to say as I don't know for sure. I do know that it wasn't Phantom or Cavaliers as they went on immediately before and after Madison respectively.

[bd5times]

I found out last night that Madison and Blue Devils did space chords together. That must've been quite a sound.

[IRMO]

The hornline and drumlines warming up too close to and facing the stadium during Madison's show. I think I know which hornline it was, but I'm not going to say as I don't know for sure. I do know that it wasn't Phantom or Cavaliers as they went on immediately before and after Madison respectively.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Please lets not start this again. :) I heard drumlines warming up during several shows not just Madison's. There is no way to pin this on one corps.

I do agree that it was too close and very distracting. Other than that the show was great.

[JF_the_Elder]

I One that in a regular (judged) show would have yielded penalties for sure. I think I know which hornline it was, but I'm not going to say as I don't know for sure. I do know that it wasn't Phantom or Cavaliers as they went on immediately before and after Madison respectively.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

If it was a regular show, there wouldn't have been any penalties either, just ask any II/III corps that has all kinds of distractions go on throughout their shows or get the Americanos APD from Siloam Springs and listen to Dr. Beat during the ballad. This happens far too often because it's NOT penalized often enough.

[Scerpella]

The hornline and drumlines warming up too close to and facing the stadium during Madison's show. I think I know which hornline it was, but I'm not going to say as I don't know for sure. I do know that it wasn't Phantom or Cavaliers as they went on immediately before and after Madison respectively.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Please lets not start this again. :) I heard drumlines warming up during several shows not just Madison's. There is no way to pin this on one corps.

I do agree that it was too close and very distracting. Other than that the show was great.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Hopkins fault!! B)

[IRMO]

The hornline and drumlines warming up too close to and facing the stadium during Madison's show. I think I know which hornline it was, but I'm not going to say as I don't know for sure. I do know that it wasn't Phantom or Cavaliers as they went on immediately before and after Madison respectively.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Please lets not start this again. :) I heard drumlines warming up during several shows not just Madison's. There is no way to pin this on one corps.

I do agree that it was too close and very distracting. Other than that the show was great.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Hopkins fault!! B)

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

You should have said it was a joke because around here anything will start the rumor mill going especially when it comes to the Cadets!

He's kidding folks! (an inside joke)