Well, my life has finally calmed down enough to give me some time to write a few words about DCI Finals on August 8, in Indy.

I attended all 3 days in Indy, quarter-finals (watched all 22 corps perform), semi-finals, and finals. I also saw about a half dozen shows before finals week.

I agreed with the placement of the top 4 corps and almost entirely agree with the placement of the rest of the corps too. The Blue Devils were the best. As for second place, any of the next 3 would be fine... Carolina Crown, Holy Name Cadets, and The Cavliers. They were pretty much a tie, in my eyes... and ears. There was a drop off to 5th place, as I see it; the top 4 placing corps should have been the top 4 places, out of the 22 corps, as they were. Hail to the champs! They deserved to be the champs, clearly.

The spread between the top corps and the 12th place corps was 14 points, at finals. I do not believe that the 12 corps were, collectively, as far apart as the judges said they were; I'd say more like 11 points apart, from top to bottom.

I could rank the corps in terms of entertainment value, from my own perspective, and I don't really understand why it is that some corps entertain so well and yet don't score so well. Some corps look really good and sound great too, but score poorly, comparatively. I don't get it. This is nothing new tho. Oh well.

As ever, I had a great time. Talking with other fans is such fun too.

Bill .... you are either a GREAT fan or a glutton for punishment!

I disagree that Blue Devils were the best and that they or any group of 150 people deserved a 99. I loved their horns/drums as anticipated, but was really disappointed by their guard and overall look. I found the chairs distracting and from where I was in the top tier, you could see every positioning error they made. And the lemon yellow guard "costumes", awful! Carolina Crown in my opinion had the whole package and it was so beautifully performed, presented, packaged.... it just flowed.

Thrilled to see Troopers & Blue Stars (could have done w/out the sewing machines)
LOVED Holy Name Cadets, I believe they got the most standing ovations of any corps out there. Classy all the way. My group was really bummed with the pop music that played as the corps entered for retreat, imagine entering THE show of the year for scores to the Black Eyed Peas/Hannah Montana? Not good. So now that I have vented my thoughts as an old coot, our group plans on returning next year!!!

What did you do in the Corps? Guard

What years were you a Corps member? 73-77

Hannah Montana at finals? Good grief! Can you even imagine that in our day - Norman Lindquist entering the field to The Monkees...

What did you do in the Corps? Snare; Drum Major; Drum Instructor/Arrnager

What years were you a Corps member? 1970-73; 78-79

Yep! The pop music sucked. Worse retreat I've ever seen, overall.

DCI is trying to attract more and more young people... thus that music. Have you ever heard/read George Hopkins talk about this topic? Wrong music for that moment, tho. It instantly ruined what should have been a more solemn and celebratory moment. It was dumb and very distracting, period.

The DCI "ceremony" sounds terrible. Suggest all should contact them .. at least they'll know some people thought their plans were terrible.
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Not at all sure WHO DCI would listen to .. certainly not the fans or the corps.