6/23/16 - DCI Tour Premiere

Bluecoats - 69.700

Carolina Crown - 69.200

The Cadets - 66.950

The Cavaliers - 65.400

Phantom Regiment - 63.450

Boston Crusaders - 60.450

Click Here for Recap

The 2016 Drum Corps International Tour Premiere lived up to the hype and expectations of fans. If you were unable to view the shows in the theaters or live in Indianapolis, you missed out. Here is what I thought about each show that performed tonight along with some overall observations:

Bluecoats - I felt the same way this year as I did last year after the completion of Kinetic Noise. I was absolutely blown away and unsure of what I had just witnessed. I was mesmerized with what I had just seen and heard. Last year, Bluecoats came in second place behind The Cadets. What I heard most often after the event tonight was how we will have a new DCI Champion in August. I, however, am not one of those people. Before you begin to argue, I'll explain my reasoning. At this time last year, The Cadets were, as many saw it, the 2015 champions. There weren't many that believed The Cadets would not take home the gold at the end of the season. Last year, I was one of those individuals that swore up and down that The Cadets would win it all. The Cadets scored over a point higher than Bluecoats on opening night and ended up falling short to them at World Championships. I know The Cadets and Bluecoats are two very different organizations with very different approaches to show design, teaching methods, and ability to grow throughout the season. That being said, I think it is a little early to start declaring Bluecoats as the "clear winner". Yes, Bluecoats came in first tonight overall, but only because they scored close to a point higher in GE over Carolina Crown. Carolina Crown still placed higher in Visual and Music. Carolina Crown, at this point, are not as clean GE wise compared to Bluecoats and if Carolina Crown is able to fix that, as I'm sure they are, we're looking at a very different ballgame. Please do not take this as an anti-Bluecoats post because it's not. I'm just trying to explain how close the top corps are going to be this season and nothing is "clear" yet nor will be throughout this entire season.

Carolina Crown - Coming off a second place finish last year, it was not that huge of a shock to fans and myself when we realized Carolina Crown was performing another revenge show. "Relentless", similar to "A Sec2nd Chance", is designed to show the audience that they won't stop fighting after a second place finish. This program is very complex and not very easy to grasp for all audience members. The wooden carriage makes the show feel like a western but there are points in the show where a modern feel takes over. You have traditional Crown power chords and runs along with leg movements that can be found in many other Crown productions. Their production right now is still a skeleton and has the potential to grow exponentially throughout the rest of the season. There is a lot going on right now and not all of it is clean but that can be taken as a good thing. Where they finished last night was not too far behind Bluecoats. If Carolina Crown can grow as much as I think they can throughout the season, we're looking at one incredible production.

The Cadets - Easily the most transparent corps, most if not all of us have seen small chunks of The Cadets throughout the off season. George Hopkins goes out of his way daily to post photos, videos, or live streams. This year, The Cadets lost a key staff member, Jeff Sacktig. The lose of Jeff brought it a very different visual production than we are used to seeing from The Cadets. This year we see elements such as story telling and character development. Always a corps to push limits, The Cadets are using a full trombone line marching on the field. In 2014, Santa Clara Vanguard had a very large trombone line in their opener but they never marched. This year, The Cadets have a large trombone line surrounding one of the two large "birthday cake" props. They are also experimenting with a violin soloist on the other prop. Overall, this program is different than we're used to seeing from The Cadets but I am not sure with how this show will develop throughout the season. There was over a point different between The Cadets and Carolina Crown and with The Cadets' trend of peaking right before Finals, we might see The Cadets start to loose momentum very quickly this year.

The Cavaliers - When I watched the webcast the other night with The Cavaliers and The Cadets, I was very pleased to see how clean and strong The Cavaliers were looking so early in the season. Since their fall in 2012, The Cavaliers have worked very hard to push back up the ranks. Last year, the corps was very sick the final weeks of tour which resulted in a placement that may have seemed unfitting if the corps had remained healthy. This year, they are starting strong and are most likely taking extra steps to make sure the corps does not get sick again. When I first heard the show concept, Crossmen 2013 bounced around in my head. The Cavaliers could have gone in a few different directions with this concept but I believe they chose one that can be built upon, unlike Crossmen 2013. I am very excited to see how this show compares to other corps as the season progresses.

Phantom Regiment - I have to say, when I saw the repertoire for this season many months ago, I was excited. It has a very 2003 feel to it and I think it really brings back a classic Phantom Regiment. As Phantom Regiment celebrates their 60th anniversary, it seems that they're taking old Phantom aspects and mixing them with new, modern Phantom. Compared to other corps that performed last night, it seems that they are not as clean as they would have liked to be at this point. Phantom Regiment isn't often a corps who moves up and down the ranks but instead stays around the same relative range. This year might change that. I would not be surprised to see a mid-season surge from them.

Boston Crusaders - I was in love with this program as soon as it was released. If you have never read Don Quixote, the concept may be difficult to understand. It is a long book but you can find summaries online if you don't want to read the full 900+ pages. Once you understand the book, it is very easy to tie in with Boston Crusaders' program and overall corps history. The windmill props may confuse some but in the book (spoiler alert), Don Quixote comes across these very large windmills. Don Quixote, because he's crazy, thinks they're giants and tries to fight them. This small part of the book alone ties in the props but also the corps' song "Giant". Although the song derives from the 1956 film "Giant", it is still an interesting comparison to think about. Looking much cleaner than they did last year at this point, I believe this leaves Boston a lot of time to grow still. One of Boston's issues during the season is they never get a chance to peak. They often finish the season with work they could have cleaned but simply didn't have time for. This year may be the exception to that.

Overall, I believe the corps this year are much cleaner as a whole that in previous years. They are all fighting for higher placements than they're used to and I'm interested to see what happens on West Coast over the next week.