6/28 - DCI All Star Review

The Cadets - 79.000 Carolina Crown - 77.500 The Cavaliers - 73.700 Boston Crusaders - 68.300 Crossmen - 67.500 Troopers - 66.300 Spirit of Atlanta - 65.000

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Legends - 53.900

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So, I am going to break down each corps, then I will give my final 2 cents. Unfortunately, I could not see Legends. Spirit of Atlanta-GE was probably their best category. I personally thought that the atmosphere came across fairly well. New additions to the show will add a lot. Music needs work, however percussion stuck around very close to Troop and Crossmen. Right now visual is their weakest category, but not design. Their content score was significantly higher than their achievement, so it’s all about cleaning. Overall they performed strong, just need to clean their captions. Troopers- Music and visual were the strong points for this corps. You can tell that the music and visual program will grow exponentially as well just by the energy they brought to this performance. GE, however, may be an issue for the Troopers. It seems that the theme they are going for is not matching up to what they are bringing to the field. It will be very challenging to match the GE category with the same excellence as the visual and music especially. Crossmen-First off, Crossmen, although close, got last in visual tonight. Personally, I thought it was a solid performance, but the little errors are sticking out. GE is definitely their best caption, not only on the scores but though their performance. As spirit, they also create a nice atmosphere for the show. Music is pretty good, their percussion helps them definitely. I would say they are similar to Spirit, good design just need to add and clean. Boston- They seem to be coming out of a rough start. As opposed to last year where the theme seemed to be very bought into and motivated, this year the same feeling doesn’t come across. Colorguard is great, I would say just as solid as last year. They are helping their visual program a lot, as the main product seems to be lacking. GE also needs to be more defined just as I said for the troopers. After seeing their 2013 show early season, and then at finals, I can tell you that BAC is no stranger to huge and numerous changes to their show (for the better of course). Finally, they got 6th in music, and it seems from their performance that the brass is a little thin. This issue is obviously fixable, and I see them rising in this caption as the season continues. The Cavaliers-Music was great from Cavs. Both brass and percussion knocked it out of the park, creating a safe gap between them and the other four. Visual was great content wise, but needs more cleaning as all the other corps do. I really believe that there is more to come from them but the GE needs work. It seems to be eluding to many different takes of “Game on.” Perhaps video games, perhaps aggressive statements of winning, either way it is not popping out as one true theme to me. We shall see how the season progresses. Carolina Crown-Visual, visual, visual. Crown is absolutely jam packed in the visual category, great drill, a ton of body movement, and colorguard that is simply sizzling. GE is getting there, but much improved from the preview night. Music is a toss up. Although they are very clean, they are not content wise up to their usual par from previous years. Brass will be a wild card as the season progresses. Percussion is much improved, and is helping their music score in these early competitions. The Cadets-Musically and visually just exceptionally clean. They are nailing down nice GE scores, however they may have an issue late season with GE overall. Colorguard needs work, especially when facing Crown later this summer, it may decide the visual category. Here are my final thoughts. Cavs and troopers are the only two who have design flaws that hurt GE. The rest just need to keep cleaning and powering through the grind. It seems that no matter what level of world class you are, there are dog fights. Fights for top 15, finalist, 6-10, and definitely the top 5. This season is more competitive than previous years.