From: drapeau@oglala.Stanford.EDU (George Drapeau)
Subject: Re: Reviews of performances (?)
Reply-To: drapeau@sioux.stanford.edu
Organization: Libraries and Information Resources, Stanford University
Date: 19 Aug 92 18:35:25

In article <1992Aug19.174815.19143@beaver.cs.washington.edu> dci@cs.washington.edu (Donald Chinn) writes:

   I'd be interested in seeing some semi-detailed opinions about
   the performances (I've already expressed my impressions); "Madison
   should have won," "SCV got ripped," "the Crossmen were hot," "Star
   should have won," etc. just aren't informative enough.  Where is
   George Drapeau when you need him ...

I'm in my office, crying my eyes out because I couldn't attend "Nat's"
in person.  Seriously though, a friend of mine from Seattle was
getting married on the 15th, and so luckily I was able to watch the
broadcast on Monday afternoon (the 17th) on KCTS-9.  I've only watched
the show once, so I can only say a couple of brief things.  Here they
are:

1) It's clear to me that you can't really judge the differences is the
top 5 or six shows just from the broadcast; there's simply not enough
information there from which to judge.  All top six shows looked and
sounded good, but because it was on TV, the horns sounded a little
thin and the drums had a delay effect that made everything sound a
little dirty (that was one advantage of the old days when they only
used two microphones, right on the 50, and could pick up that crisp
snare sound when the drumlines were blowing the audiences' faces off).
From what I saw, it looked as if any of the top six corps had a decent
chance to be champs (which, by the way, makes for a pretty darned
exciting drum corps season in my mind).  Also, you don't really get a
sense of the "energy" of the audience from watching on TV.  If you've
seen a big drum corps show like, you know the kind of electricity I'm
talking about.  If not, then I guess I don't have too much credibility
with this statement, do I?

2) I was watching the broadcast with my sister, and there was one
brief shot of a horn player in Star (I think) that was terrible, the
poor guy.  It was a close up of this very pale guy with shocking red
hair, and he was not looking good.  When the camera showed this brief
shot of him, it was such a shocking shot that my sister and I both
said "Euuooo!", then looked at each other like "Hey, you thought he
was scary too?"  Did anybody else have that reaction?

I gotta apologize about that last comment; it was just a bad shot of a
perfectly good corps member.  But, it was kind of morbidly funny.
Poor dude.

3) I agree with Donald; I'd sure like to hear some detailed commentary
about the shows.  Were there any noticeable problems with any of the
top six shows?

4) Of all the corps on the broadcast, Madison's show had the most
"electricity" to me; it was the only show where I could ascertain any
sense of excitement from the corps, the show, and the audience.  I
really enjoyed all the shows, but Madison's really came alive more on
the broadcast than the others.  It was the same for my sister; we both
clapped big-time after their performance, especially when we could see
and hear that the audience was really into it.


Oops, sorry about that.  I had said short comments, and only a couple.

Later days,

	George
	(heart-broken that the Vanguard dropped the ball this season)
--
______________________________________________________________________________
George D. Drapeau			Internet: drapeau@sioux.stanford.edu
Libraries and Information Resources
Stanford University
Newsgroups: alt.drumcorps