Thanks to M. Herzing on RAMD for this review! Just finished the long drive back from Buff. so this will be brief. For those who could not attend, you missed a treat: this was a thrilling finals week, with many powerful, quality performances. Note: I did not get a recap for finals, so references to subcaptions will be based on recaps from the previous two shows (I assume that these trends continued. If I err, mea culpa maxima!). 1st: Cavaliers (98.3) --I was not particularly impressed with their Quarters and Semis performances, but the Cavies stepped up a gave a true Championship quality performance on Saturday. In doing so, they repeated recent history (1992) by climbing out the pack at the last second to surprise highly regarded competitors. Moreover, the Cavies dominated Finals night by the largest scoring margin since the 1986 Devils, pulling down caption awards in Percussion performance (sum of the field drums scores for Thurs. Fri. and Sat.), total GE (finals alone), and music (music ensemble + brass and drum perf. scores from Saturday). In the end, this program proved to be the best integrated of those presented by the top contendors, filled with memorable moments, particularly in the drill design and drum book. Congratulations 1995 Champions! 2nd : CBC (97.2) -- As usual, the Cadets pressed hard all week, but on Saturday could not generate the kind of performance needed to close the gap with Cavaliers. "American Quintet" told a great story, and appeared to connect well with the crowd on all three nights. Cadets also seemed to manage to raise their performance level from night to night, although Saturday's performance was plagued by falls due to the wet astroturf (Rich Stadium was deluged ~2 hours prior to the show start). CBC suffered in the GE music caption (relative to Cavies): IMO this was due to taking a "quiet intensity" approach to much of the music book. I can't fault them for this, since the music demanded it, and this approach went with the strengths of their horn line. Also, throughout the week ensemble scores, (particularly ensemble music) were down relative to the other top contenders. However, CBC tied Madison and Devils for high horn performance. Cadets also won the Division I "Spirit of Disney" award for entertainment, education, etc. 3rd: Devils (96.7) -- The Devils appeared to ram into an emotional and performance wall during Finals week that prevented them from moving "Carpe Noctem" to the next level. Devils won high visual performance (including a perfect 10.0 on Thursday!), tied Madison and Cadets for high brass, and won high auxiliary (the latter led to lusty booing by the crowd, although it was unclear whose guard the audience wanted to see it awarded to: Cavies or CBC). Many of the opinions voiced on RAMD about the split nature of Devs' show (1st half an interpretation of "Legand of Alcobasa", 2nd half a kind of diabolical latin hoe down), as well as overall weakness in GE (again, relative to the Cavies, who really move the bar up on everyone else in the last few days). 4th: Scouts (95.4) -- The show of the evening (and maybe the decade) from a pure crowd standpoint. I counted six full standing ovations (including one for the fleur de lis warm-up drill). The crowd was on its feet for the last full minute of the show! Madison had particularly solid performances on Thursday and Saturday, but IMO they sacrified some (not much!) cleanliness in pursuit of all of the intensity. It is hard to see how they managed to consistently trail the other top contenders by such a wide margin (something we'll be discussing over the next few months on RAMD, I'll wager). Thanks Madison! 5th: Phantom (94.1) -- Although not at the same level as the other top corps, Phantom successfully produced a very entertaining and enjoyable show. Since POC, Phantom rewrote the closing drill, and swapped out silverized material for the white cloth used in the "picture frames." Particularly notable was the relatively dark, dry sound of Phantom's snares: I'm not a drum guy, but this approach struck me as particularly effective at drawing the audience's attention to the battery during drum breaks/solos. 6th: SCV (91.9) -- One of many corps that struggled to make their show intelligible all season. The first half of the show ("The Battle") was rough going musically, but featured some interesting and engaging drill moves. The second half was a more conventional reading of "Nuts", and seemed to engage the crowd more effectively. Although SCV's final score and placement is not great relative to history (even recent history) it strikes me that they made a great deal of progress towards finding a new approach to their shows. There was a lot of experimenting going on here, but I imagine we'll see a lot of the lessons learned in the form of a much more competitive SCV in the next couple of seasons. 7th: Bluecoats (89.5) -- Not much to comment on here except to congratulate the 'Coats for a truly outstanding season. I liked the fact that the Bluecoats managed to put a much more sophisticated program on the field than in the last few years, without losing any of their traditional audience appeal. They fully earned the right to coveted 7th spot. Bravo! 8th: Glassmen (88.3) -- Another corps that deserves hearty congratulations. Glassmen took a great deal of heat this season for trying to give a strictly conventional musical book (not for drum corps, of course) an unconventional visual twist. While not 100% successful, they demonstrated real courage in pursuing their vision, and ended up producing a show that (IMO) worked really well at a lot of different levels. Also of note was the emergence of the Glassmen horn line. The final measures of "Mighty Fortress" was a real treat! 9th: Colts (86.3) -- Yet another "lower echelon" corps makes a major step forward. "Sunday in the Park With George" was a real test of Colts creative meetle, which I think they passed with flying colors. 10th: Crossmen (85.1) -- Although a (small) step backwards from last years 7th place tie with Blue Knights, this final score and placement is (IMO) a real triumph for Crossmen. Of all the top-12 corps, their show was probably the most problem filled, both from a design and from a performance standpoint. I found this to be a very effective show, with most of the rewrites working very well. Particularly notable was the color guard, which was superb, as well as the drum line. Again, I'm not a drum guy, but if Crossmen are any example, other corps should look at using Mylar next year: I don't think much (if anything) was lost in terms of the cleanliness and tightness of the sound, and it seemed much more musical to me. 11th: Crown (82.8) -- Crown hammered their performance on Friday night, but slumped a bit on Saturday. I confess that I've been totally wacky about this show ever since I first saw it at DCI North. This struck me as one of the best designed shows I've ever seen, particularly for a corps at this level. In particular, I love the second (slow) movement. I can't wait to see what another year of growth and maturity brings! 12th: Magic (82.4) -- Fascinating to see Crown and Magic paired together. Two young corps with (hopefully) bright futures. Magic's muse is certainly different, but one that's worth pursuing. I'm not sure it "Danse Animale" was a huge leap forward for Magic, but it's certainly not a step backward either. Overall, a very entertaining show.
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