Cavaliers...............81.4 Colts...................68.6 Minnesota Brass Sr......63.4 Troopers................52.0 Blue Stars..............47.5 Govenaires Sr...........47.4 Coachmen................39.8 Edmonton Strutters......34.8 Thanks to Peter Dysart for emailing us these scores!
General Effect Ensemble Performance
Corps Mus. Vis. Tot. Mus. Vis. Tot. Brs. Per. Vis. Tot. Pen. Tot.
Cavaliers 15.9 16.3 32.2 12.7 11.9 24.6 8.1 8.6 7.9 24.6 81.4
Colts 14.4 13.7 28.1 9.6 10.2 19.8 7.1 7.2 6.4 20.7 68.6
MN Brass 14.0 13.5 27.5 8.3 7.9 16.2 6.5 7.0 6.2 19.7 63.4
Troopers 10.6 9.9 20.5 7.5 6.1 13.6 6.3 6.1 5.7 18.1 0.2 52.0
Blue Stars 8.4 10.0 18.4 7.1 6.3 13.4 5.2 5.0 5.5 15.7 47.5
Govenaires 8.9 9.8 18.7 6.7 5.6 12.3 5.5 5.5 5.4 16.4 47.4
Coachmen 7.5 8.1 15.6 5.4 5.0 10.4 4.7 4.5 4.7 13.9 0.1 39.8
Strutters 7.8 3.8 11.6 5.0 4.7 9.7 3.5 3.9 6.1 13.5 34.8
Crossmen.................71.5 Bluecoats................66.6 Carolina Crown...........64.7 Kiwanis Kavaliers........54.5 Div. II/III Tarheel Sun..............61.1 Lake Erie Regiment.......47.2 The groups all performed very well. I was there for the whole show and it was great!! Thanks to Dan Sommers for emailing us these scores!
Okay, here is my near full-length review for the Willoughby (listed as Canton on schedules), Ohio show last evening.
The weather had been threatening but cleared up by showtime and in fact become a bit of a hazard in being too sunny. The first 3 corps had to battle the sun in their eyes. After the sun set, the temperature plummeted and it began to snow. Okay maybe no snow, but it was nice and cool.
The stadium was a little on the small side, with low stands. Thanks to some nice connections, I got to watch almost the whole show in the pressbox, sitting smack dab on the 50. There were only 4 people sitting higher than me and they were judging.
To fulfill Mr. Playloud's request (gosh, he sounds familiar), the stands were almost full, which equated to just over 1000 people. This was the first year for this show and the Willoughby people did a fantastic job (word was they need to sell either 600 or 1000 tickets to break even - they did that with ease). Tickets were $10.
I had to miss Lake Erie Regiment because I was expecting someone who never showed up, so I apologize to them for not seeing their show.
TARHEEL SUN - First observation: why doesn't the pit wear the sun logo like the rest of the corps? Bright yellow uniforms really make these guys noticeable and for a Division II corps these guys are huge!
In fact, Tarheel had the 2nd most horns of any corps, which made for some really loud moments in their show and that was fun to listen to. The show is a Kenton suite and El Conga Valiente was very well done.
Tarheel is still young in age in terms of membership and that shows at times with many wayward horn angles and lack of upper body control. The drill is somewhat compact and does not spread out a whole lot, but they do a nice job of flowing from one visual transition to the next.
Another big plus for this corps is the soloists, shed that Division II moniker this corps could hang with a lot of Open class groups. Probably the biggest hole in this show right now is the guard, their drill is not well written and they don't integrate too well with the rest of the corps.
Still, these guys put on a great show and perform well. Well worth catching this show a bunch of times and look for them to kick some heiny in August.
KIWANIS KAVALIERS - I saw their first show a week ago in Columbus, so I was eager to see the improvement. I noticed right off the bat that the guard had some additions to the uniforms, so they aren't in all black (so I thought, more on that in a bit). The opening soloist was restaged, too, and I think is more effective.
The progress with Kavaliers is well noted, but they still have a lot of horn holes, I counted less than 40 horns. However, their quality and control was, at times, very, very good. They moved pretty well at times too.
As with Tarheel, the low viewing angle made much of the drill look muddled and hard to read. Like I said a week ago, Kiwanis appears to like this show and they communicate their performance rather well, plus they aren't afraid of hanging it on the line and maybe making a few mistakes.
However, after the first half of this show the guard was suddenly back into all black again and they hardly spun or did anything except run around the field. And honestly, I found this a little disconcerting. It's been a full week since they started and the guard still doesn't know the whole drill and still doesn't have a full show's worth of work.
This did and will continue to kill Kiwanis in a number of captions. To their credit, I think there was a lot of rewrites out there that were just learned and the corps seemed to struggle at times to keep the drill moving.
I like Kiwanis and I really like this show, but they've got a whole heck of a lot of work that has to be done, otherwise they will definitely slip a few notches come August (hey, anyone out there thinking of marching, go find Kiwanis and join up).
While Kiwanis scored a 54 to Tarheel's Division II 61, I noticed a big difference in terms of presence between the two. Kiwanis is a little older and they carry themselves better.
**** For a 6 corps show, they stuck in an intermission, why? It was at this time that clouds rolled in and got much colder. One other note, the theme for this evening's show was "let's debut our massive rewrites tonight."
CAROLINA CROWN - Crown's guard is highly noticeable thanks to their brightly colored outfits. It would appear that they spent a lot of time cleaning the opener as it came across very well and was the cleanest of anything they did. At times, they pumped a really, really nice horn sound.
The overall visual design is well laid out in my mind, though the mellos seem to dominate the time up front and the melodies (but then again, run with your strengths, eh?). Crown had some individual performance problems this evening in terms of wayward horn angles, missed attacks, squeaks and burps.
At times they appeared quite timid with parts of the drill (a number of people looking around while marching and taking an extra step after a halt). This also caused their marching technique to suffer as well.
Playing Russian Christmas is ambitious as I imagine many people like me will make unfair comparisons to SCV (no one will ever play it as well as they did, in my mind).
Crown's design though is smooth, it moves well and has some very nice moments. The guard has a lot of upfront time and has some good talent as well. As has been discussed much on here, the battery is indeed very strong and the snare section in particular did a real nice job. They can play, they can play real well, they deserve a lot of credit for that.
CROSSMEN - I'm curious as to who made the comment earlier that the percussion section did not seem to play all that much, because I didn't see that, they played a lot and they played extremely well.
Crossmen's show is another well designed show with few problems. It's a smooth show that really ties in well with the music of Metheny (kudos to the designers). The horns can play well (53 of them that I counted) at times and they actually put out some sound this year, though they usually only got real loud while standing still.
The flowing drill and such made the show look very easy to march (I'm not claiming it is easy, just that it appears easy). The guard, all 835 of them, were everywhere. They were huge, they were good and they added a lot to this show.
A quick question, were X-men always planning on just 5 snares? The battery seemed small, but they kicked butt. Like I said, the hornline at times was really nice, but at other times I heard some funky tuning and blown attacks.
Again, it appeared that there were a lot of rewrites as there was a lot of small visual miscues everywhere and lack of good visual technique (have I mentioned there were a lot of wayward horn angles this evening?). The other thing I noticed about this show was the lack of major impact moments.
And you could see this effect on the crowd, they kind of appeared to be lulled into some new age trance. The show is so smooth and flowing that there was a lot of edges to rip the crowd out of their seats. And the ending of the show comes quick and sudden, which I think surprised the crowd.
Personally, I liked First Circle better the first year they played it, but this year's version is still quite nice. The guard feature in the middle of that with the corps framing them is, so far, the best visual moment I've seen this year - easy.
But what's with the baritones and, I think, contras standing still in a half-circle for like 45 seconds? Come on, if you're going to feature them, do something with them - anything!
This show is on par with what they did last year, but it's too difficult to say right now if this show will move them up, keep them steady or drop them down (I've seen only 4 top 12 corps' total so far).
They did deserve win this show.
BLUECOATS - This was the DCI/A "home" show for Canton and they did bring in a good home crowd (which seems to be the norm in Ohio anyhow).
Guess what? The Bluecoats also did a major amount of rewrites this week, almost exclusively in Summertime and it showed. The opening move constricting the highly spread out set is still very effective, the guard popping off their jackets into that explosion of color thing I mentioned in my last review was a little bit less effective tonight (but then, I was expecting it).
The beginning bari feature had some flubs, and blubs in it and as with every single other corps out there, I saw a fair amount of foot phasing (how can someone's feet not be in time but still be playing in time?).
The guard is still very strong and adds a whole heck of lot to this show. Some of the sop solos and features don't seem to be cutting through (maybe staging, maybe tired chops, I don't know), but there is one soloist in particular that you would swear was born and raised in Concord, California. Wow.
Like I said Summertime was a major rewrite and it showed by being somewhat flat in terms of visual and musical performance. The singing is well done, my belief is that it's not all that easy to sing that well while moving around and all that.
The transition into Autumn Leaves is a little stilted, there's no DM cutoff, but there's an obvious pause in visual motion which caused the crowd a little confusion, plus a DM exchange and well, it's just a wee bit confusing.
Oh, the drum solo continues to lag a bit. The snare feature was cluttered and the Basses seemed a little out of whack, but the tenor line comes down the front and center wailing away. The line has a lot of room for improvement and I suspect they'll do just that.
Autumn Leaves is coming along really well for Canton and it becomes more and more apparent that they like to play the tune. I'm biased about the tune and I was rather affected by it this evening.
The hornline had it share of great moments and some flubs and blubs, they've still got about 4 holes (mellos and contras). The ending of the show is strong musically and I think (hope) that in a few weeks the loudness level here will approach the Spinal Tap 11 mark.
Word was that Canton won 2 of the 3 visual captions, but got dumped heavily in ensemble visual. I thought they moved well on the field with generally the best technique (at times), but like everyone else there's major room for improvement.
Conclusions: For the first ever show here, it went well (a newspaper ad wrongly had the show scheduled for Wednesday), though no one told them how the retreat was supposed to go (we had to whisper to them to bring the DM's forward before announcing scores and to dismiss the corps). Still they were excited and are already planning next year (the pig roast is almost worth admission alone).
Crossmen's 5 point spread I thought was a little much, but their show is more polished at this point than Canton's. Crown has a good show design, but they don't seem to have the members locked in to performing at the level needed to move up higher. Canton has pieces and parts of a really good show, but they still have work to do in terms of bringing the package together into a whole. Kiwanis has another good show concept but need more practice time and people. Tarheel Sun is a corps to watch (if they were a stock, I'd invest in them right now).
I was finally able to attend my first DCI show of the summer, after spending some time on the road with the Glenn Miller Orchestra, and I must say that I was very impressed with the overall products of the corps in attendance.
Tarheel Sun
For those of you into checking out the Div. II/III corps, here is a great example of a corps that is doing the right things both on and off the field. They are quite large for a div. II corps (126 total members, and I think 64 brass). They put out a powerful sound, and the percussion is solid. The corps performs a show called the "Stan Kenton Suite," featuring "September Song," "El Conga Valiente," "Malibu Moonlight," "Artistry in Percussion," and "Artistry Jumps." Their show is solid drum corps, with singable themes, and good entertainment. Check 'em out.
Lake Erie Regiment
A very small corps, Lake Erie did a fine job of performing for the audience under tough conditions. I say this because they went on first while a large portion of the audience was still entering the stands and talking -- too much talking. However, I enjoyed the effort they put forth, and only wish they could fill all the holes in their show. By the way, even though they are small, this corps can pump out some sound.
Kiwanis Kavaliers
This show is set in post-WWII Paris, as they perform the 1951 Oscar winning classic, "An American in Paris." The music is recognizable, but the way it's arranged did not seem to sit well with the audience. One moment you are following along just fine, the next, the show takes off into about 2 minutes of chaos. More than anything, I found the visual program to be the weakest element for these guys. Through the entire show, not one visual effect hit me or captured my attention. It seemed like 11 minutes of running where ever you wanted and hoping the forms somehow came together. The corps is much smaller right now than they were last year. I counted maybe 40 brass and maybe 25 percussion. They wrote for more than that, so I hope they are able to come up with the people to fill those spots. Their horn line does pump out some sound, and their control was quite good in a number of sections, but nothing was consistent.
Carolina Crown
The music of Alfred Reed seems to be working well for them. I'm not that hip on the arrangement of "Russian Christmas Music" which opens the show, but I love the drill. The corps is really moving this year. I think their visual book was probably the hardest and most beautiful here tonight, although it is certainly the most dirty as well. The second portion of their show consists of "Armenian Dances." Now this arrangement I really like, and they play the heck out of it. Overall, their horn line is wonderful sounding, with the contra line adding so much depth because of their beautiful sound and good intonation. Their drum line is incredible, and their guard must be the largest guard in DCI this year (nearly 40). The final part of the show features the music of "Praise Jerusalem." This is powerful music that makes for a nice encore, but I felt that the final company front was somewhat lackluster. This was in part because they haven't cleaned the visual move, but also because I don't think the music builds enough before the final offering. Overall, this is a good, solid drum corps show which will, no doubt, have something in it for everyone.
Bluecoats
I really like Canton's show this year. Simply put, this show is 100% pure entertainment with a capital E. The "Four Seasons of Jazz" show is starting to come around, although there have been many changes, so there is still a lot to clean. But the 'Coats have a solid total package, including a very strong horn line, a good percussion line, and a real good guard. They use a lot of field and have some great visual moments happening, but the crowd really dug the music which was always hum-able, exciting, and in your face. In fact, there is a section of the show which features some great singing by the members of the horn line which is done tastefully, and they really sell it to the audience. There is a lot to be cleaned in this production, especially the feet in which I noticed lots of problems. But in another week or two this show should be well on its way to doing very well at the big regionals, and finals.
Crossmen
What can I say but WOW! I really like this show, although it is not the aggressive Crossmen we have come to expect. They are more like last year's corps, balanced brass and percussion, but the music is not quite as driving as last year's. There is a sort of relaxing feel to this music which I find appealing, especially in "First Circle." They are playing music of the Pat Metheny Group, and the feel and groove of the music is true to the Metheny recordings. The percussion is simply outstanding, and their technique is amazing. I really liked the use of the steel drums during sections of the show. The horn line is not real big, I counted 54 horns, but they put out a nice, balanced sound. The Crossmen guard is simply awesome. Make sure to watch them some, they will blow you away with some stellar visual effects, including one towards the end of the show in which they rotate a block at high speed, while doing some incredible synchronized flag work. This is a show that is very capable of putting the Crossmen back into the top 6, and no lower than 8th or 9th.
I also attended the Altoona, PA show, and should have a review up in another couple of hours or so.
Glassmen.................77.5 Phantom Regiment.........77.1 Pioneer..................65.1 Phantom Legion...........53.7 Cincinnati Glory.........50.5 Genl Butler Vgbnd........46.0 Marion Cadets............42.6 Bandettes................25.5 Thanks to Heather Miller for emailing us these scores!
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