Brass Ablaze Posted July 10, 2005 Share Posted July 10, 2005 Well, I'm not going to give a full review but I want to touch on a few things. If someone would like to do a full review here, please go for it. Luckily the weather man was way wrong when he predicted rain Saturday night because the weather turned out perfect, blue skys and nice mild weather ( around 70 degrees I think) that was just right. Well, it was the evening of the Seattle Cascades homeshow. The crowd was smaller than previous years, which was expected due to the weather prediction and show lineup (I think BD drew in a bigger crowd last year than PR). I don't normally buy a program but those sneaky people stuck the cutest little girl out front selling them and we couldn't resist her uber cuteness. CRIPES! The first corp was one of the best ones in my opinion, Blue Devils B. The percussion judge must have picked up on something I didn't because the percussion score was 14.90 which is .1 less than what the vangaurd cadets got. WTF <**> ! The BD percussion was WAY better! I really got into the drum break and the crowd loved it. Way to lay it down guys. You rocked the house! They defanitely deserved the second best score in the competition, but a 77.6? hmmm I think these scores were a little inflated. Maybe it's just me. The Oregon Crusaders show, while lacking the phatty percussion feature the BD had, felt overall more interesting from a brass perspective in my opinion. The problem was, it felt like I had heard that same show like a million times. The theme was sands of time and the songs felt like they just ripped off other corps old tunes accept made them worse. The show didnt seem to have contrast to me but rather it just felt like the same 30 seconds over and over and over through the whole show. They get soft, they crescendo to a loud whatever its called, then quiet again, then another crescendo, etc. Fever's show can be sumed up in two phrases: "Nice jazz run" and "get new uniforms". The uniforms were a major distraction because not only were they bland and ugly but the legs were not tapered enough so it looked like they were swimming in there. The show itself was nothing to jump up and down about but they performed well. Ok, so the Cascades show....where to start. Well the first thing you will notice when you see the show is the hidious guard outfits. WTF were they thinking? Think 2002 cavi outfits except in purple and hot pink. <**> Then you will notice the big orange (yes neon orange) circles, cubes, and triangle props on the field. They used the props to construct a shape of an airplane. Points for creativity but not much else. I feel like they were taking picaso and giving him a box of color crayons and a mickey mouse coloring book. This show would be a decent high school band show, that's about all. The horn parts and percussion parts were lacking and anything that could even be considered interesting was covered up by...you guessed it...narration. NARRATION!!! WTF!! And not even good narration at that! They kid they had doing the narration has a high pitched annoying voice and a friggin lisp! If you are going to try and be hip and have narration, at least get someone with a Vin Diesel voice in there, not the little scrawny 14 year old from the pit. And to top that, the narration RUINED the best brass parts by covering it up! Then to kick themselves while they were down, the poor guard members had to use kite-like airplanes and run around with them like they were somehow interesting. They just made it look elementary and people were literally in the stands laughing at them, AT THEIR OWN HOME SHOW! As for the drill, it seemed they barely left the center of the field. It looked like a jumble of people just running around with no forms or designs in some parts of the show whatsoever. I think the best words to discribe the drill at some points was organized chaos. Spread them out a little! Having that many people crammed between the 35 yard lines in curves is just plain messy and jumbled looking. BLEH! I'm sorry Sal, Kurt, Jeremy, Rob, Dave, and all you other members of the Scades staff for giving you such a bad review but seriously, it sucked guys. These kids have so much more talent and yet they are hampered by their horrible show. Overall my thoughts on the show were that it was an attempt to modernize but they did it in too many ways and ended up just ruining the whole show. Bad narration, bad colors, bad props, boring music and drill. Lots of potential lost to a really crummy show design in my opinion. Give your show to one of the local high schools and start from scratch in my opinion. This corp will NOT make finals this year. There I said it, they won't, and they shouldn't. Do they have skills to compete against the other div 1 corps? yes, but their show when compared to other division 1 corps can not measure up to what it needs to be for a finalist corp. I was very disapointed. I need to make myself clear that I am not disapointed in the members as they performed it well and have a lot of talent and potential but my disapointment is with the design team for making such a talented corp look so silly and ######## out there. Oh ya, and Phantom was great. Great horns. Recognisable melodies. A nice relief after the Cascades show. Cascades need to look at these guys for an example because THAT is the kind of show that gets you into finals, not the junk that they have. I think everyone out here really appreciates Phantom for coming all the way up here. Having a big name Div 1 corp out here helps draw more crowd which supports the music in the northwest. Overall, I enjoyed the shows although last year was better. The division 2 corps sounded really good this year though, although I think their scores may have been a little inflated, as well as the Cascades score. The end of the night featured the hornlines from Phantom and Cascades performing America O Canada which was excellent. Then the Cascades performed a standstill of their warmups and their show. If you ask me, I give their field show a score of 50 and their standstill a score of 75. The standstill was a million times better for many reasons: No ugly color guard uniforms and silly airplanes, no distracting narrations, no sloppy jumbled drill, and no elementary looking props....just the music. The music in itself is very pretty. Too bad it gets lost in all the other stuff that takes away from it. Well. Sorry for such a bad review but hey, at least I am honest. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scott414 Posted July 10, 2005 Share Posted July 10, 2005 No Spokane Thunder review??? I thought they were going to Seattle after leaving the oregon show last night.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brass Ablaze Posted July 10, 2005 Author Share Posted July 10, 2005 No Spokane Thunder review??? I thought they were going to Seattle after leaving the oregon show last night.... <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Yeah, Spokane Thunder and Vanguard Cadets were also there. Nothing to jump up and down about but decent shows. For being so small, I thought Spokane thunder did a nice job. They had lots of potential. VC was pretty good and their drill was stronger than Blue Devils B and Oregon Crusaders IMO. The percussion was tight but nothing as hip as BD had. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jcn8 Posted July 10, 2005 Share Posted July 10, 2005 They kid they had doing the narration has a high pitched annoying voice and a friggin lisp! If you are going to try and be hip and have narration, at least get someone with a Vin Diesel voice in there, not the little scrawny 14 year old from the pit. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I'm sure the 14 year old kid's parents and friends enjoyed reading your complimentary words. Come on, express your opinions, but don't attack the kids for God's sake. Totally classless. <**> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ryan H. Turner Posted July 10, 2005 Share Posted July 10, 2005 Probably one of the worst reviews I've read. I'm all about honesty, as I've certainly rocked the boat calling out the things in shows that obviously don't work for whatever reason, but demeaning a kid who's only doing what he's told and referring to the product by the staff as making the corps look "silly and ########" is unnecessary. I HAVE a mentally ######## brother, and using his handicap as a way to make your point is classless and rude. You may have a perfect right to your opinion and that's fine. I defintely defend your right to that. And heck, I even agree with your summation of narration. I can't stand it either. But chill on the personal digs dude. Thumbs down. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlbionNY Drum Line Posted July 10, 2005 Share Posted July 10, 2005 (edited) i thought it was a good review definatly the ###### thing wasnt needed Edited July 10, 2005 by AlbionNY Drum Line Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rogerbaby2001 Posted July 10, 2005 Share Posted July 10, 2005 Probably one of the worst reviews I've read. I'm all about honesty, as I've certainly rocked the boat calling out the things in shows that obviously don't work for whatever reason, but demeaning a kid who's only doing what he's told and referring to the product by the staff as making the corps look "silly and ########" is unnecessary. I HAVE a mentally ######## brother, and using his handicap as a way to make your point is classless and rude.You may have a perfect right to your opinion and that's fine. I defintely defend your right to that. And heck, I even agree with your summation of narration. I can't stand it either. But chill on the personal digs dude. Thumbs down. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> That kind of politically correct thinking is what history will show us was the demise of our culture 50 -100 years from now it wasn't a personal dig ...he didn't like the narration or the narrator ...if everyone tip toes around worrying about hurting someones feelings it does the kid no good and it does seattle no good ...I agree with his summation of it after sitting throughn the scades show in Hillsboro the night before I almost wanted to put an ad in the post inteligencer (or whatever it's called) warning everyone ...I hate all narration unless it's to say "Seattle you may take the field for finals compeition" I love the scades and I was glad to see that Portland (defending div 3 world champions) showed up this year with new uniforms, a new attitude , a new awesome horn section that blew my skirt up a few timesbut who unfortunately left their drums back in division 3 ---yuck! all in all it's not the kids fault he isn't a narrator ..#### thats why he's in the pit because he's a good pit player. Its no shame to him that he can't narrate ...he wasn't brought in to narrate !! and thats what makes it not personal Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
asvab Posted July 10, 2005 Share Posted July 10, 2005 The first corp was one of the best ones in my opinion, Blue Devils B. The percussion judge must have picked up on something I didn't because the percussion score was 14.90 which is .1 less than what the vangaurd cadets got. WTF <**> ! The BD percussion was WAY better! <{POST_SNAPBACK}> The BD drum line was great, but so was SCVC. They were outstanding IMO. I think the judges got it right. It was a toss up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JazzCat82 Posted July 10, 2005 Share Posted July 10, 2005 In contrast, I have to say that I thought Cascades show this year is refreshing, and very entertaining. While I may not have been completely excited when I first heard narration would be included, I think it suits the purpose. And this show as a whole is much more entertaining than in the past. I walked away very proud to be a Cascades Alumni last night. Just wanted to put a little good with the bad I suppose... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Newseditor44 Posted July 10, 2005 Share Posted July 10, 2005 Probably one of the worst reviews I've read. I'm all about honesty, as I've certainly rocked the boat calling out the things in shows that obviously don't work for whatever reason, but demeaning a kid who's only doing what he's told and referring to the product by the staff as making the corps look "silly and ########" is unnecessary. I HAVE a mentally ######## brother, and using his handicap as a way to make your point is classless and rude.You may have a perfect right to your opinion and that's fine. I defintely defend your right to that. And heck, I even agree with your summation of narration. I can't stand it either. But chill on the personal digs dude. Thumbs down. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I have to concur with my good friend from Southern California on this one... this could have been done with a little more tact. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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