Thanks to Matt Dillon on RAMD for this review! This is my first show since I marched finals with Blue Devils in 1984, so forgive my exhuberance. I have seen a lot of tapes and listened to CD's, but nothing beats live!! WOW!!! WOW!!! WOW!!! I must have really been busy not to have gone to a single show since 1984. It definitely won't be that long again!! Pacific Crest: Not bad at all!! There is no way that these guys are 6.9 points below Blue Devils "B". They have a hornline compliment of 19 or 20 and they are fairly clean. Very good projection. Good marching technique, etc (although they were inside the 30's for the whole show). What they are lacking is bodies. They only had five guard members, three snares, two quads, bass drums(?). This little corp has a lot of heart. I wouldn't be surprised if they became a DCI member in a few years with a growing membership. Blue Devils "B": Nice job, but need to clean it up. Even a "B" corp can make things look much better with some cleaning. Not much else to say, keep on training them and encouraging them for the step up. That's a BIG step!! Mandarins: Wow. These guys are so much better than they were in the early 80's. The score didn't reflect how much better they were than BDB. Surprisingly clean marching and coverage of the field. The horn book was fitting for this caliber corp and they handled it very well. Beautiful guard. Oh yeah, the uniforms were nice too. They had to leave early because some of the members are in summer school. It still would have shown a little more class to have left the drum major to receive awards, etc. and then ride home with a parent or something. Oh well. Velvet Knights: This is a fun show. Not the hokey group that I remember from long ago, there is some real technique involved here. I think the 66.0 was much too low. They were not 13 points worse than SCV!! They were a bit dirty, especially marching. Horns came off very nicely. If they clean this show up, they will be in there. Really liked the drum solo where the entire corp picks up a perc. instrument. They covered the field very well and showed lots of promise. Go for it! Santa Clara Vanguard: Nice show, but dump the props. Get back to the SCV of old. I still see the presence of power in there, let it come out. The marching was excellent for this time of year although some of the lines were a bit jagged at times. Horn show is not what it used to be. Don't get me wrong, it's a good book and all, but not at a level that I expect from SCV. Seemed to me that SCV was using the props to cover a lot of the field instead of marching it. The props are too annoying. Enough about the damned props. SCV went on after sunset and the field was a bit wet (right by the ocean, lots of condensation), I saw the 5th bass take a fall behind the snare line. He made a nice recovery and it wasn't that noticeable to the general crowd. Horns played the hell out of the book tonight. Sounded real nice, but they went on after BD and that is a hard act to follow. Gonna take a lot to out do the Blue. BLUE DEVILS!!!!!! Yeah...I'm biased, but even so, they don't need it. This has got to be either THE BEST, or one of the best horn and drum lines that has ever taken the field. I envy each and every member. This corp will go down in history. They must have gotten some comment from a judge last year about field coverage because they are making sure they cover it from the beginning to end. Horns are lined around the perimeter of the field in their step off formation and slide back and forth throughout the entire show. I counted at least three of the classic "S" stretches during this show. They all fit well. Two of the horns took a dive on the wet field. One contra and one sop. Nice recovery from some bad spills. I think the falls had a lot to do with the point differential from the Long Beach show. Anyone who has ever said that drums can't march and play well needs to check this show out. The drums were AWESOME. Those "high stick" moves eveyone was talking about are too cool. IMHO, every one of the snare line could be center snare in any of the top corps. Ditto for quads. Horns....horns....WOW!!!! Lost my breath. I always used to laugh at the alumni and wannabes who used to say "it gave me chills," but HOLY S**T!! They will not be beat. This is only July 9...it's just hard to believe a corp can be so good this early. The real talent in this line was reinforced when they did their victory concert. Tremendous. My 2 year old son was even paying attention. That is saying something, believe me you! I would give anything to be able to see them in Buffalo when they are at their peak. Truly in a class of their own. IMO, no one will touch them. I don't care if I haven't seen the other corps. If they are beat, or someone even comes close, I will have missed the best season in history. I saw that an old Valley Fever alum is assisting with the BD hornline. Anyone who catches up with Todd and/or Lynette (Logan) Clark, say hey from Matt Dillon. Man, I'm ramblin' but BD blew my doors off. I'm gonna quit my day job and modify my birth certificate. In there, on it!! Later. Matt Dillon '82-'83 Valley Fever '84 Blue Devils (BUSH!!!!)
Thanks to HFMoon on RAMD for this review! I'm going to leave the scores out of this, as others have already covered them. The stadium, like always was beautiful, but where were the Cybercorps members? didn't see a yellow shirt anywhere in the crowd(except my own). Anyway, on to the corps. Pacific Crest- These guys get the "Big surprise of the evening" award from me. Three-freakin'-years-old and they are really becoming good. Good horn book, good drum book, good visual book, and they performed it well. The only set back so far is people. A few more members to help fill out those forms and they'll easily be a contender. The original music was great. Blue Devils "B"- Better than I expected. The horn book needs some cleaning, and hopefully they'll have enough time to clean it before they run out of money. Fun show, "The Mambo Kings", and some nice emotion coming from the field. I didn't like the guard uniforms, but the guard itself was good. They'll definitly go far if they get to go to Nats this year. Mandarins- What can I say, great as always. Their music and visual are on the caliber of a top6 Div.1 corps, and they used their numbers very efficiently. Best guard of the Div.2. The show almost starts slowing down after "Theme from Speed", but once the Frankenstein music picks up the excitement shoots back up. I'm seeing another title in their future. Velvet Knights- After being a competitor with this corps for three years, it was nice to get to see them as an impartial observer. Needless to say, they are much better than previous years. Their show, while it does occasionally lack direction, has a lot of potential and is performed well. The gigantic percussion part in the middle was awsome! After some cleaning I can see VK getting back into finals. Blue Devils- As always, a good show. The show title, "Carpe Noctem" (sieze the night) comes off as dark and the first half of the show fits it beautifully. The begining is dark and forboding, with the opener following this up nicely. Definitely a show that is wothy, and can be pulled off by, BD. I thought the "Adverntures in Time" teaser was cute, and it did fit into the "night" idea. The piece after that was a nice bit of confusion(that's a good thing). As for the second half of the show, see the post entitled "Opinions on BD's show" for my thoughts on that. Santa Clara Vanguard- So far, my favorite show. They say that it's a "post-modern adaptation of the themes and mood of Tchaikovsky's Nucracker Suite." and it is exactly that. You can pick out the themes here and there(I personally caught four). The props, at leats to me, are much less apparent now than in previous years, and they didn't get in the way. The entire show, especially the very begining, seem to be along the idea of "don't leave the crowd feeling peaceful or resolved". The very begining is almost disturbing, in a good way. The guard was neck&neck with BD's for best of the night. The frequent uniform changes end up working nicely to fit the different moods, but the firast one seems waaayyy too early. It's like "okay, we came out to the field with these on, you've seen enough of them." The rest of the changes(were there more than two?) were alot more subtle. Although BD is getting a solid 6 points on SCV right now, I don't think the spread is going to hold up through-out the season. I can see the end of the year as a tight run between these two powerhouses. Richard, Euph
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