Seatlle Cascades Dress Run through

[lanestar]

Well, I went down to the tiny berg of Mount Angel last night to check out the corps and see a few friends. Here is what I thought.

First stop, horn warm up. They sound good, not great, but good. Low brass is really good. However this makes for a little unballenced sound for me. If the high brass catch up, look out. they will be blowing down doors.

Now for the show. First Kurt got up and talked to everyone in the stands about the corps and the show. Can you say rude people? He had no Mic, but if everyone there would have been polite and shut the #### up we all could have heard him just fine. Since when is it acceoptable to talk when someone is trying to address you, and even worse, put a muzzle on your brats. It's bad enough that they are not being taught how to be a good audience member, but to ruin everyone elses chance of hearing is not cool. (okay, end of rant)

Well, let's get this out of the way first. Yes, there is narration. I am told by Kurt, that is is a part of the original piece. True or not, i hated it. I really try to have an open mind about this stuff, but to me, I felt like they were calling me dumb, by telling me what the show was about. I'm a big boy, I can figure it out. It was more a distraction that anything to me. Cut the narration, and I really would have liked this show.

The opener is great! the stands were to low to get a good read on drill, but they are moving. It's powerful, and loud, and perfect for there show concept. (flight) The horns really carry this section. the gaurd is good, but not up to the level of the horns and drums. Which is to be expected.

Second tune is also good, but not as moving as the opener. the drums sounded great here, and were really doing a great job with this tune. There Caption head Rob Lewis and I marched together in The early 90's and it's great to see him out there teaching at this level. He doing a great job with this group of kids.

Okay, now for Stairway To Heaven. I was really soked to hear this. I wanted it to be great, and to rock the dump. But...... not so much. DIRTY horns, arraingement that really made no sence to me, and at the end when they parked and rocked out, it sounded like mud. Now this could just be the vantage point I was at. Small stands, on the 35 yard line side two. How ever, it was not good to me at all. I'm sure by San Antonio when I see them again, it will be rockin'

Closer was good, a recap of the show and did a great job of building to the end. Had a few marching issues, saw a couple kids go down, but it's early.

All in all it's a good show. I need another read from a good stadium to really tell you if this is a top 12 package, but the kids are performing it well for June. I wish them well, and hope they do great this summer.

PS That was my first review, hope it didn't suck

PPS Kank the narration bit Seattle, you don't need it.

[Guizeppe]

Is there naration :( mixed in throughout or just during the opener/closer?

[lanestar]

Is there naration :(  mixed in throughout or just during the opener/closer?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

It's mixed thoughout the whole show.

[Lance]

The main piece they're doing, Airborn Symphony has lots of narration throughout. I'm talking about the actual piece by Blitzstein that came out decades ago...you should listen to it sometime. The mix of music with narrative is what makes the symphony so good.

[Guizeppe]

:sshh: (Reserving judgement till I see them.)

[Logan313]

A View From the Center

or

Mt. Angel 2005

This evening I showed up early to watch the members pile into the buses and finish up shining those horns and taping those flags together. It was probably still in the upper 70's at 6pm and the members were definitely feeling the sweat dripping down their faces. Most of them were very excited to be getting out of Mt. Angel and onto the road, but a few of them were less than pleased with their seating situations. Oh, they liked their seat partner, but some of the personalities around them were not going to allow them to sleep as much as they would have liked this summer.

I said my hellos to the program and support staff and made my way over to the visual warmup area. I talked with Brett Harbur who started a new tradition with Seattle Cascades by making bracelets/anklets for the rifle-line in the color of the guard uniforms (which BTW are absolutely the best uniforms DCI has seen in a LONG time--similar to Cavaliers '02). The staff also got some of these but in green and silver.

I watched the cookshack semi back into the cookshack but not latch in so it pushed the cookshack itself about 3 feet and then watched as some staff frantically tried to evaluate damage to it. I also watched how the hornline seemed unaffected and had great concentration on Jeremy Kelly during the entire fiasco.

For those of you who are wondering about the staff bus: it appears that it's sick and isn't allowed to leave the hospital for a couple of days, so the staff is making the trek to California in the airporter. Sad for them. No DVD. No A/C even. If you see any of the staff buy them a beverage of some sort that Sal would approve of.

A good amount of Alumni showed up to support the Cascades tonight and there was a very large support group from area local McNary High School.

Kurt Jull explained to the packed stands about what the activity is and where it will take the members this year. He talked briefly about the show concept and explained that it wouldn't be as deep as last year's concept and thus much more received by the audience hopefully. Then the festivities began.

The members took the field to much applause and did their usual warmup process. The judges were ready, the fans were ready, the staff was ready, and after about a 20 second delay, the corps was ready as well (it takes a long time to set those props).

The narration adds a lot to the production and leads very well into the first impact where the visual design locked in for just a moment to give us a taste of what August will be like.

The pacing of the show was amazing and the audience definitely could tell where certain things would take place. The changes from Friday were great additions and got the sort of GE reaction the staff was looking for. I would say that Airborne Symphony into Aerodynamics was the strongest part of the show with Redline experiencing a front-to-back phase in the trumpet section.

All-in-all this was a good test audience for the members as it let them get some jitters out, and let the members know where they really have to work to get an audience response. What we liked we cheered and yelled for, what we didn't like we stayed quiet for. I even found myself jumping up and yelling in celebration when a rotation just locked in right away and I felt chills go down my back.

When the show ended the members arced it up and played Ave Maria many of us were hoping for Imagine but it hadn't been worked enough to be performance ready.