July 6, Michigan City, IN

Thanks to PHOENYX for directly emailing this review to us!

     As one fan behind us put it, "What was once one of the crappiest show 
sites in the Midwest is now one of the best."  And he ain't kiddin.  I 
remember this show from 91 with Cavaliers kicking up all kinds of dust from 
the pitcher's mound on the 20.  Now, the new stadium is beautiful.  Too bad 
the same can not be said about the show's lineup.  Dissappointingly, there 
were no top 6 corps slated for this show.  The brunt of the ticket-selling 
fell upon the Colts, Glassmen, and Troopers.  Still, it turned out to be a 
very good show.  Here are my observations from 25 rows up (1 from the top) on 
the 30.
     First up was Bayou City Blues Sr. (EXH) all the way from the Lone Star 
State.  Their park and blow show of mostly drum corps standards was a welcome 
catalyst to get the crowd in the proper mood for an evening of drum corps.  
Especially notable was their silly rendition of "Happy Trails".  What fun.
     Mirage Sr. (7th, 29.4) was the first corps to take the field in 
competition.  To tell you the truth, I can't recall a single moment from this 
show except wishing that I'd gone to get a hot dog.  Sure, it's only senior 
corps...but guys, learn your notes!
     With a much sharper look, the Bandettes (8th, 29.2) followed up with 
their rendition of "Gypsy".  The opener of "Everything's Coming Up Roses" was 
a marked improvement from Mirage and I expected them to follow it well.  
Unfortunately, the very difficult drill spent these girls much too quickly 
and the rest of the show was an exercise in endurance...for both the corps 
and the audience.  Still, I was suprised to see them below Mirage.
     A much improved Coachmen (6th, 44.7) then performed their show of jazz 
standards, with the highlight being "La Suerte de Los Tontos" (which the 
announcer could not pronounce).  Although the vests on the color guard are a 
crappy addition that simply does not fit, the rest of the show showed marked 
improvement from two weeks ago.  Coachmen should be strong as ever at DCM 
finals.
     In the past couple years, I have come to see Golden Lancers (5th, 60.7) 
as the beginning of "The Big Corps".  In fact, the Lancers are the littlest 
"Big Corps" in existance.  Boasting only 35 members, they proved their mettle 
tonight by being only .4 behind the Troopers!  Another show that I viewed 2 
weeks ago in LaPorte, I was looking forward to the Lancers' performance.  
Their flight-based show proves that a 16 member hornline and 6 member color 
guard can still make a serious run at the top 21.  Unfortunately, their show 
tonight was plagued with performance problems.  They seemed to suffer from an 
odd combination of overexcitement and lack of attention.  One minute, they 
would play the hell out of a nasty lick and the next minute they would flub 
something easy.  Still, they should have no problem topping the crowd again 
at DCM finals and may even find themselves playing on the 3rd CD.
     Speaking of performance problems, the Troopers (4th, 61.1) seemed to 
consist of nothing else!  After stalling the beginning of their tour, they 
came out just 4 days ago and it definately shows.  Their show is an extremely 
unremarkable string of tunes that they are too concerned with pushing the 
right buttons during to put ANY feeling into it.  This show has an amazing 
distance to go if Troopers want to make semifinals this year.  The only 
possible high point seems to be the (too short) ballad of Shennendoah, in 
which the color guard and corps paint a picture of the sun, sky, and a lake.  
This picture is nice for a while, but then they split off and do their own 
thing (still keeping the sun, sky, and lake flags) and the piece culminates 
with a 4-5 year old girl with a sabre.  As for why she appears, my guess is 
it's a thinly-veiled attempt to snag those extra "cute" GE points.
     The most improved over the last two weeks award definately has to go to 
the Kiwanis Kavaliers (3rd, 67.9).  When you attempt such a popular drum 
corps standard as "West Side Story", you either have to find your own identity 
in the piece or sink like a stone into drum corps medeocrity.  Unlike two 
weeks ago, Kiwanis now seems to almost have hit upon that identity.  Every 
tune now has it's own identity and the corps can get through it with the same 
energy they began with.  The biggest addition and the new high point of the 
show is an exhilirating trashcan drum solo that needs only be tweaked a bit 
to come up to maximum effectiveness.  They only seem to have a few problems: 
1) a few minor song sections (only sections, not whole tunes) still ahve that 
"me too" quality;
2) the closer is generic and needs to be at least partly rewritten; and most 
importantly:
3) the color guard concept has not yet been adequately defined -- as my 
fiancee put it, "Why is their work so conservative when they're dressed to 
kick ass?"
Overall, this is a fabulous show and a fabulous corps and if they can work 
out these problems, I fully expect to see them perform on Friday.
     Glassmen (2nd, 74.4) have one of the truly oddest shows I have seen in 
a while.  It mainly consists of 4 parts:
I. the warm-up -- in a bold step, the Glassmen march drill indicitave of 
Military Bands, Drum Corps, and Drill Teams for a full minute or two before 
playing a 30-second segment of "Stars & Stripes Forever" and finally 
stopping.  Problems: 1) this takes too long...they'll never be able to 
clean 13 minutes of drill, 2) they perform this in dancey Glassmen style 
instead of crisp West Point style -- in short, it looks like shit.  On the 
brighter side, the ending of the warm-up right before the big hit of the 
theme and then continuing where they left off in the opening statement is a 
great joke, even if the did use it last year
II. "Stars & Stripes" -- aside from more dancey drill moves which simply must 
be crisper, this section was simply too convoluted drillwise.  There was too 
much going on with no particular rhyme or reason.  Musicwise, however, it was 
fine.
III.  the Ives piece -- I hated this piece.  It is quite possibly the biggest 
piece of shit I have ever seen put on a football field.  There is no motion 
in this piece towards anything and it goes absolutely nowhere.  Two minutes 
of utter shit.
IV. the Gershwin medly closer -- I can sum this up in one phrase: a handfull 
of moments of greatness held together by crap.  This is a terrible medly.
Overall, the guard uniforms and equipment are again the worst in DCI and, 
unfortunately, (and this is the bottom line) the corps is simply not as 
talented as last year's corps.  A score .5 behind the Colts was a gift.  I 
would have had them at a 72-73 and Colts at 76-77.
     If you couldn't tell by my critique of the Glassmen, I am highly 
opinionated and stubborn in my views of drum corps.  Very infrequently do I 
ever have to eat my words.  The 1996 Colts (1st, 74.9) are one of those rare 
instances.  When I heard they were switching to classical, I was very 
apprehensive.  Very few corps have successfully pulled off a style change and 
many have died from trying.  When I saw the Colts 2 weeks ago, I thought 
"Damn, they're good...damn, I'm bored".  Now, after 2 more viewings (well, 1 
viewing and a victory concert), the show has grown on me.  Especially in the 
victory arc (where I snuck up as close as I possibly could and ended up 
sitting right in front of the mellophones), I learned to appreciate the 
nuances in the music and the raw power and clean tone of this hornline.  The 
Colts have taken the best sounding non-top 6 hornline honors the Glassmen 
held last year.  After saying that, I also want to make one more statement: 
What the hell is up with that Bumblebee color guard?!?!?!  It seems like 
Colts have taken a color guard tip from the Glassmen!  The unis and flags 
are absolutely wretched.  Even the work, for the most part, seems to be 
contrary to the corps proper visual theme.  The Magnificat theme seems to 
pop up more in the visual book, but could still be exploited further.  I'd 
love to see a giant see-through cloth painted like a stained glass window 
pulled over the corps at finals!!!
     Well that's about it.  Everyone write to your congressman...well, ok, 
DCI...and tell them you want retreat back.  I hate not hearing signature 
tunes.  

July Scores

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Last updated: July 7, 1996

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