July 31, Canton, OH

Thanks to Jeff Wise on r.a.m.d for this review!

July 31, Canton, OH, Review & Predicitions

    The rain held off until the alumni parties were starting up, just
like last year.  As usual, the overhang of Massillon stadium makes the
sound pop up a bit more lively than normal, which makes things fun.

        For what it's worth, and for those of you who don't know me,
I'm an alum of Canton.  However, I try not to let things like that
affect me when prosing off a review, I've worked with other corps so I
think I know how to remove the colored lenses when it is called for.

    I completely missed Spirit thanks to some last minute wrangling of
missing tickets and what not.  This was disheartening because I've
really wanted to see them all summer.  Yes, I said that.  Yes, I've
read the other comments on here, but I still pull for the corps. 
They've got good old fashioned Southern Guts.

    Spirit went on first and scored last with something around 65.

    This was my first watch of Blue Knights.  I find it equally
disheartening that a corps can just miss making top 12 one year and
have that adversely affect their future season.  

    There show is fairly well designed and it rather difficult.  It's
just too difficult for the talent they have.  A few members of the
hornline looked genuinely scared of some of the pass throughs. 
Multiple falls and near collisons showed me why they might think that
way.  

    However, the showed really moved.  There's a lot of motion there. 
Ralph Hardimon has a reputation all his own that smacks of excellence,
besides being a class act.  His lines always seem to effuse likewise
sentiments.

    Meaning, the design team is still solid in Denver.  The visual tech
team hasn't done much, the basic technique known to BK in past years
has almost disappeared.  

    Still, given some positive recruiting, these guys could make a
strong comeback into Finals sometime soon.  Probably not this year.

    They were sixth at around a 76 I believe.

    Crossmen took the field next looking very hyped.  Rumors had
floated around about small skirmishes between X-men and the host corps.
The Canton members I talked with believed it was all out of a small
misunderstanding and put it aside holding no grudges (heck some of them
said they really, really dig Birdland).

    Guess what?  Crossmen have found a visual program!  And they're
cleaning it too.  As I said almost 2 weeks ago from Dayton, the guard
and drumline kick butt and come at you for 11 minutes solid with no
let-up.

    The opening hornline/flag feature is now fairly clean and oh so
much more effective and impressive.  Maybe the best opening 30 seconds
outside of top 6.  The horns are cleaning up as well and musically they
are getting much better.  Still small and so their sound was about as
loud (if you want to measure such things) as BK. 

    Still compared to the "death knells" that came about pre-season,
Crossmen's death was greatly Mark Twained.  But all isn't rosy.  The
Nightengale ballad showcases a wonderful guard, but the hornline still
hasn't mastered the nuances of soft, lush and beautiful playing. 
Balance problems also came out from the low end tonight.

    Birdland is even more ecstatic and energetic (this is a show to let
bandos watch to get them interested in drum corps) but the feet.  The
feet, he said.  Whew, despite getting some nice visual moves and such,
the feet of Crossmen still pose many many problems and it's now August.
Again, all that role playing stuff (don't they drop anvils on mimes in
the cartoons?  You think they do it for a reason?) just doesn't come
across well -- they still look like football players being made to
perform the Nutcracker.

    Still, when you've got a drumline and guard like they do, there's
always something else to watch.  Seventh place at Finals is probably
out of reach (Allentown might change that), but contention for a single
digit placement isn't.

    Crossmen were fourth at an 81.0.

    Glassmen came on next, just before the break.  I was duly informed
that the pre-show arm flinging drill was much cleaner than it has been.
 Lo and behold they were right!  It's much improved, but there's still
a handful of people (and they stick out... that's why I see them) who
don't have rhythm (kind of ironic considering the drum solo song
title).

    Here's another corps that made vast improvements over the past few
weeks (again from Dayton when I saw them last).  Sousa is starting to
click.  Someone complained to me that the whole opener is just simple
"marching band" stuff.  Well, duh.  Sousa, marching band... marhcing
band, Sousa.  Get it?  Guess that's why they were sitting watching and
not doing, eh?

    The Ives seems to be a bit more hinting at Columbia, Mermaid, er
Gem of the Ocean than Ives.  Come now, I liked the Ives before, keep it
three and try to work with it.  The guard uniforms consistently wear on
me as not fitting the show, as do the flags.

    The body stuff, I'm sorry, I'm trying to let this stuff work out in
the show and outside of the Gershiwn, it's not clicking.  Even if the
horn people did their stuff in unison, I still don't think it'd fit.

    Isn't I Got Rhythm, a rhythmic type of piece?  The people playing
the field drums, their mouths seem to move like their counting in time
or something.  Don't think that's what George and Ira had in mind when
the tune was created.

    But, the corner placement of the soloists in American In Paris is
rather nice.  No, I take that back, it's better.  I really liked the
effect and felt sorry for the back left soloist who appears to have
sustained a leg injury (the other back soloist fracked the same notes
that were fracked in Dayton, vuja de, eh?).

    But, like I said, they've improved.  The marching is better, the
drill while not complementary in many places does have some nice
changes to it.  It looked like there were some new changes in the show
that needed some practice, but all in all, the show is starting to
improve.  The umbrellas though, not much better than the 3d spheres.  

    Glassmen finish strong, and maybe that's a metaphor for their
season.  We'll see.  They should at the least hang onto a Finalist
spot.  Tonight they were fifth with an 80.something.

    INTERMISSION - did you realize this show ties in with the induction
of people into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.  Too bad none of them
football players (Dan Dierdorf this year) stick around for the show.

    Bluecoats were first after the time off.  Home town show, home town
crowd and there just wasn't any doubting that.  The home show is nice
because the corps could stand still and mime for 11 minutes and still
get a standing ovation (yes, we tried it once in 1992).

    Michael Cesario has been suggesting changes during this week.  Man,
this guy's hand still works some nice magic, he's got a touch.  A
strong rumor has it that certain people in the know have called
Canton's contra line the best in DCI this year.  People from a corps in
Concord have stopped by to offer their praise on the horn line.

    I asked the contra section leader and another 4-year contra about
all this.  He and she said it's nice to hear, but they still have a lot
of work to get done.  Wow, did they say a lot of work.  With what? 
Their tan lines?

    This horn line has a unique sound that just reeks of wonderful
balance and understanding by the members.  They play soft well, they
hit accents, they do crescendos and decrescendos that deaf people can
pick out.  And now, and now I tell you, they're also starting to figure
out this marching gig too.  Nasty combination that can be.

    A groups of people in the front rows held up a big sign showing
support for the female third bass player.  She's got chops, better yet,
the female snare player has gotten tons of respect from just about
everyone this year.

    The guard's improved leaps and bounds.  They got some good stuff
going on there.  The drumline's coming around too.  While the corps was
psyched for the show, they had many, many recent changes going on and
it showed up in the form of dirt and muck.  The performance was there,
the cleanliness is on its way.

    The Labor Day segment continued to change to make things more and
more obvious.  The drum solo still needs some work to click and the
hornline (much like X-men's) aren't completely immersed into the role
playing yet.

    The ending changed from Madison, where they sang the end of Auld
Lang Syne and then kicked into a tag drill and music.  The drill, while
nice, didn't really fir into anything.  So that got axed, as did the
playing ending.  Now it's just the singing into a nicely staged bit (I
mentioned Cesario already, right?)  The timing isn't there yet, big
emphasis on yet.  I saw this in practice ans it has much potential as a
heart tugger.

    The corps' looking forward to days on no changes and cleaning and
they can't wait to see Mickey and Minnie, where most likely they'll be
slugging with Colts over 7th with Crown possibly being able to sneak by
both of them.  If you can find a member, ask them about the soprano
section shirts, they're the pinnacle of section shirts.  Canton
finished a strong third with an 83.0.

    Cavaliers came on, and they seemed to have more of those trellis
things.  I hope they find some nice tomato plants for thos after the
season instead of burning them in the parking lot after Finals.

    This show has really changed since I last saw it, but heck that was
June, so what else could I expect.  The biggest improvement in my eyes
was the overall level in basic technique.  The Cavalier tradition
continues.  Which doesn't mean that the drill itself was particularly
clean, but they move well.  However, there is excellent substance to
the drill, which like almost all Rosemont drills fit the show nicely.

    The hornline compares favorably with last year's, though last
year's music may be more challenging overall.  The drumline is typical
Cavaliers, strong and well performed.  Cavaliers as a whole always seem
to have a strong understanding of what they're supposed to do on the
field.  

    The guard has what looks like a very difficult show.  Either they
spin rifles like they're feather or those rifles really are light as a
feather -- I don't know, it doesn't much matter anyways.

    Copland is working well for them, got to wonder if it might be
something more to explore (Appalachian Spring for '97?  yeah right.). 
There's lotsa hip stuff in Tender Land, besides what's been played over
and over by other corps.

    Whatever the case.  This show seems to be collecting enough gas
that a repeat is not completely out of the picture.  It is definitely
too soon to say, but the race for second and third should be a real
zinger this year.  Cavaliers finished second, about a point behind
Cadets.

    Cadets took the field last, actually those props took the field and
the Cadets were somewhere behind them.  This show's just a gas.  I had
a friend there though who had concerns with it.  He said it was a case
of too much going on at once.  This was his only time to see the show
and he was a bit depressed because he knows he missed so much.

    I thought about that.  He's right, I think.  But is that
necessarily bad?  Yes and no I guess, how many people only get to see a
show once?  And watching it on video is really just watching the same
exact show over and over.

    What I mean is, I almost exclusively watched the guard tonight,
because I watched most of the drill way up high in Madison.  I know I
missed a lot from the other sections, but I was still completely
satisfied with what I saw at each show.  In Orlando I'll see them three
times, and that'll give me opportunities to focus on different areas
with Finals being a sit back and try to take in the whole thing at
once.

    Still, what about my friend?  He's only seen them once.  He really
liked the show.  He may get the videos or least the Cadets video, but
he won't get a chance to watch the sections he wanted to.  Hmmm.  I
guess that's just part of being a fan, eh?

    As for the show.  Hey, Cadets pack in as much as they can in 11
minutes, which is fitting that this will be their championship to lose
in Disney, land of sensory overload.  Better yet, the corps is starting
to clean the drill, it's just now August and there's some really really
clean moments in this show -- and I mean really clean moments in the
difficult drill parts of the show.  Oh me oh my.

    Still, there's some moves, like where they fly into an arc or
something that look just as dirty as they did in Dayton a few weeks
back and in Madison last weekend.  Does this mean this is stuff that's
going to change?  How much longer will Cadets keep doing big changes?

    Still, these guys, the guard especially, know how to perform and
they perform well and consistently at that.  This is another show,
maybe the best show in the last few years, to put on in front of a
group of non-corps bando people and get them excited about what this
activity is all about.

    Interestingly, Cadets' victory concert was unimpressive.  The
drumline disappeared and the hornline sounds tons better when they're
flying around the field.  Especially the baritones that kept barking at
us, whew, they sure don't sound like that on the field.  

    Since Cavaliers were second, that means Cadets won the show.  As I
said, this should be a championship Cadets will have to lose.  Given
their track record in terms of performing into Finals week and on The
Big Saturday, I don't see that readily happening.  Will they win all
the captions or not, now that will be interesting to see.

As usual, this was my opinion, I welcome comments and thoughts.  Please
excuse spelling errors, this wonderful service provider provides me
with service but no spell check.

Jeff Wise

Seattle Web Factory

Last updated: August 4, 1996

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