Oswego, IL Review

[billj]

It was very cool tonight - jeans & jackert weather, and a bit windy.

Exhibition

Legends - Nice job. Simple design, but they can handle it & put out some sound for their size.

1 Capital Sound 56.450

Didn't seem to perform as well as at the Lisle show - more playing and marching issues. The guard is really struggling. The overall design is probably a little over the corps head, but they are giving a very good effort. It also doesn't help that there are what look to be about 6-8 holes in the hornline - hopefully they can close those.

1 Colt Cadets 56.250

They must be doing something right in Dubuque. It's great to see a "feeder" corps still around, let alone of this size. And, as usual, the big corps cheered the on from backfield. Nicely designed for their ability level - fun, recognizeable, melodic rock music.

5 Pioneer 60.550

Seeing this for a 2nd time this year, I really think there is some wasted talent in the corps. Design-wise, there's not a lot there, especially visually, but the music all starts to sound the same, too. And a reccomendation to their staff: if you're going to run up to the top of the stadium in the middle, right around a lot of spectators, then BE QUIET DURING THE PERFORMANCE. Many staffs were up there tonight, but Pioneers was the only one to cheer, clap, yell, etc... like every 30 seconds. Please let the audience determine when to applaud. If you need to be a cheerleader, stay down on the track - it's very distracting.

4 Madison Scouts 66.550

I find the pre-show & post-shoe to be the most interesting part. The drill to the pre-show was a little different than in Lisle - they sequentially stopped/froze on yard-lines now, instead in in diagonals. Overall performance had a few loud parts, but still dirty in music & guard, and very dirty in parts of the drill.

3 Pacific Crest 66.650

Clean, but very simplistic design, musically & visually. I remember very little about their guard. Narration is cheesy. The overall desing is a bit marching band - like. They actually pumped out some big sounds, but mostly during park and blows (which they have a lot of). As I've seen mentioned before, this corps seems to have the ability to handle a more complex music & marching book. For whatever reason, they have a Blue Knights - like kick step-off from their halt position. Didn't stay for scores, but we thought that they'd be close to Madison, based on execution.

2 Colts 72.950

Fairly nice. Very clean marching. Guard was very good. Some fairly big sounds from the brass & percussion was pretty clean tonight. Drill-wise, I didn't get the feel that there was a ton of demand all the time. And the closer, both musically and drill-wise really didn't have the ending of a top 12 finalist. Hopefully they have more to add - they need some excitement & velocity to cap this show off.

1 The Cavaliers 81.900

More melodic than most years. Hornline played well, but not with a ton of volume. Some interesting 3-d drill in the horns, though the rolling on the ground did get a little old. Some crazy drill during the middle part that includes "Pressure". Guard had a lot of good moments, but sometimes they way they were split felt a bit odd to me (seemed like they have a group of flags that are in the back a lot - maybe the less experienced ones? - and the guys featured on the weapons are always front & center). The closer is a typical June temporary closer for Cavies - I'm sure the real closer will be put in over the next few weeks.

[scalenesofar]

Nice review!

I just got off the phone with a good friend of mine that's marching mello in Colts and he said they're going to change a lot of things, specifically in the closer. He said they haven't been getting very good feedback about the the closer. After tomorrow, they have an entire week of nothing but rehearsals so they have plenty of time to implement and clean these changes.

[dciguy01]

RE: Colts closer...

I haven't seen the show yet, but I have heard the APD. I love the arrangement and the driving percussion to cap it off. They just have to clean and polish the music really.

Is it the drill, specifically, which is getting the negative feedback?

RE: Cavies...

I said the same thing about them in Pittsburgh. The volume just is not there. Volume doesn't win championships, I understand, but it does create excitement and GE for sure.

Edited June 29, 2007 by dciguy01

[cavies79]

RE: Colts closer...

I haven't seen the show yet, but I have heard the APD. I love the arrangement and the driving percussion to cap it off. They just have to clean and polish the music really.

Is it the drill, specifically, which is getting the negative feedback?

RE: Cavies...

I said the same thing about them in Pittsburgh. The volume just is not there. Volume doesn't win championships, I understand, but it does create excitement and GE for sure.

For the most part, I think your comment about Cavies has been said the last few years. However, they usually play with great intonation, articulation, balance, and blend. They will probably crank it up a little as we get closer to August. I feel that volume helps with GE, but the other qualities help with musicianship. They probably are a top 3 brassline again.

Great to hear about Colts. I hope they make finals, as well as Blue Stars. The only down side is somebody has to miss top 12. I think Spirit might be one of those corps to fall out. Still early, but they are struggling with visual this year. We'll see.

[Junior]

I agree, it was a cool evening in Oswego but a nice, large crowd greeted the corps as they performed. Here is the short and skinny from my perspective.

Capital Sound- Did not see this corps- traffic in Chicago to Oswego.

Colts Cadets- Very entertaining show! Love the little girl on the flagline. Indeed, Colts you have a bright future ahead of you!!

Pioneers- very entertaining show. The percussion rocks!!

Pacific Crest- We really liked the Vegas show!! Welcome to the midwest!! Much love to you!! Should have beaten the Scouts by at least a 1.5-2.0 points.

Colts- I predict (not Cleo) that the Top #12 is in the future for you! Love the show as it is purely entertaining!!!

Madison Scouts- No comment, I will let someone else weigh in.

Cavaliers- Very good show with many cool visual moments happening one after the other. It will be interesting to see how far this show goes but I know with continued cleaning and enhancements, this show will be the bomb!! Can not wait until Blue Devils, SC Vanguard, Phantom, Cadets, Bluecoats and Crown ALL square off against the Cavaliers. It will be interesting!! B)

Overall, it was a good show with the friendliest team of folks to put together a drum corps event!! Hats off to you on a job well done!!!!

Good night!!

[billj]

RE: Colts closer...

I haven't seen the show yet, but I have heard the APD. I love the arrangement and the driving percussion to cap it off. They just have to clean and polish the music really.

Is it the drill, specifically, which is getting the negative feedback?

RE: Cavies...

I said the same thing about them in Pittsburgh. The volume just is not there. Volume doesn't win championships, I understand, but it does create excitement and GE for sure.

I'd guess that the closer drill would be what's in major need of updating. There's not a lot of motion or velocity - but some of that is a function of the song (which is kind of a standard closer-type song from the 80'). Oh, I forgot to mention the Colts music book in my review. It's a very ecclectic combination of music and arrangements. The music is very melodic, and mostly recognizable, which I always like. Not sure why they chose to do some jazz variations on the "winter" music, though (I would have thought that playing the music straight would have worked, just as well).

[The Nagging Cough!]

I missed the little guys because I was late to dinner.

Pioneer: yes, it's yet another Irish show, but I enjoyed it quite a bit. There were a few rough patches in some early solos, but I suppose that's to be expected at this time, and once they got past those, it really came together well and was a good opening show: memorable accessible music, nice guard, all that jazz. I'm not a fan of the pseudo-Cavalier uniforms, though: I wish they'd have stuck with their old design. I think corps in general are playing fast and loose with their visual identities too much lately. Anyway, improvement for Pioneer, bigger hornline than last year, and I hope they can translate the added muscle and strong repertoire into a successful year.

Pacific Crest: This was the first time I've seen this corps from greater LA. The Vegas show was mostly well-executed, and the selections were smart ones, but that narration. Oy. Not a clever move at all. If it was absolutely compulsory to have talking in there, I only would have kept that "welcome to Las Vegas!" line at the very beginning, because I suppose that makes it sound like it's a big production with a master of ceremonies and so forth. But the slot machine sound, the "are you feeling lucky?", and all that other jabbering didn't sound very good and subtracted more than it added. Those lines just didn't need to be there. It's Vegas. We get it. Also, the other problem was that with a corps like this, you always seem to have in your mind, "hey, that was really good...imagine if the Blue Devils tackled this." but hey. These scrappy underdogs just beat the ######### Madison Scouts. Who am I to say anything.

Colts: You know, these Colts have really figured it out the last few years, even if the judges haven't exactly been kind. This is at least the fourth Colts show in a row that was a huge hit with me and my fellow fans, because the visuals are impressive and the music is always presented in such a way to connect with the fans as much as possible, whether it's the Sunset Boulevard stuff from this year, or As Time Goes By last year, it's just wonderfully accessible. However, as accessible as their selections were, the underlying concept for the show was a tad rickety. Pairing A.L.W. with Bartok is certainly unexpected, but you know what? It worked. With the downfall of the Madison Scouts, I can really see the Colts vying for a Top 12 slot this year, and I know my fellow Midwesterners would be just as happy to see them back there as I would.

Madison: sigh. Rebuilding process, I know. "Kashmir" is an awesome monolith of a Zeppelin song, we all know that, but it seems like they dwell on it too long without covering enough ground, since admittedly, the original Zeppelin song gets pretty repetitive over its eight-minute span. Hardly their best effort, and it showed. I was really disappointed with the selections and execution of this show, especially as a fan of the Scouts. They can do so much better than this. I hope they do soon.

Cavaliers: Meh. I'm getting that Cavies-By-Numbers feeling from this one, as if I've seen it all before. Now don't get me wrong, there were some great musical moments, some great pit runs, a cool fugue, but the whole gestalt of the show just didn't hit me very hard it at all. I'm not a very big Billy Joel fan at all, so that was part of it, but another was that the brass was too mf too much, and that it just felt like, well, another Cavalier show. The fugue with some sort of visual domino effect at the three-minute mark was cool in Frameworks, not so cool here. The drum feature with everyone yelling out syllables and eventually getting together to do synchronized dance moves like the Backstreet Boys was cool in Frameworks, but not so cool here. Maybe it'll grow on me, but it probably won't. This show got an 81.9 last night. I have no idea how.

<edited for language> MS

Edited June 29, 2007 by Matt

[Ryan H. Turner]

These scrappy underdogs just beat the ######### Madison Scouts. Who am I to say anything.

LOL!! I burst out with a mighty guffaw when I read that. VERY COOL!!! Thanks for the nice start to my day...

[The Nagging Cough!]

Somebody edited my post. I figured if the filter didn't get it, it was fair game. Words hurt people.

[Voyager]

2 Colts 72.950

Fairly nice. Very clean marching. Guard was very good. Some fairly big sounds from the brass & percussion was pretty clean tonight. Drill-wise, I didn't get the feel that there was a ton of demand all the time. And the closer, both musically and drill-wise really didn't have the ending of a top 12 finalist. Hopefully they have more to add - they need some excitement & velocity to cap this show off.

I saw Colts a few weeks back and thought almost the exact same thing about end of show. Really loved the show, but the end needs work.