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.
Last updated: July 7, 1996
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