Armchair Program Coordinator: DCI 2023 (4-1)
Looking back at the great shows from this year and making them even better.
Now that the 2023 drum corps season is wrapped up, we can take a look back at the shows. If you’ve read any of my articles, you probably know that I (despite not having any real design experience) love to have opinions on show design. So today, I will finish running down the finalist corps’ shows and discussing what I liked and where I think they can take the next step. I went over 12-9 HERE, and 8-5 HERE. Concluding this three-part series, we have the four highest-placing corps from finals: Blue Devils, Bluecoats, Carolina Crown, and…
Boston Crusaders - White Whale
What I liked:
After climbing the ranks since their massive jump in 2017, the Boston Crusaders came out of 2022 with the corps’s first medal, and the 2023 production’s title is a thinly veiled reference to BAC’s desires to win it all. Taking on the story of Moby Dick, Boston pulled recognizable repertoire that would please both fans of drum corps and fans of BAC in specific.
A beautiful backfield opening of Vaughn Williams’ Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis perfectly captures the feeling of floating out on an empty sea. The jig portion of the show, kicked off by the sea shanty, “The Wellerman,” climaxes with the Dropkick Murphys’ classic and fan-favorite BAC encore tune, “I’m Shipping Up to Boston.” A stunning rendition of the love theme from Bernstein’s “On The Waterfront” takes us into the closer, and ending the program is one of my favorite moments of the entire season when the love theme reprises, creating clashing harmonies with the major chord as the White Whale reigns victorious in finals.
Where they can take the next step:
There were many issues with this show. The most glaring issue is the visual design, with the drill not effectively portraying the story and the staging being a significant problem more often than not. While changes were made throughout the season that helped solve some of these issues, the Crusaders could have seen themselves much closer to their coveted White Whale if the problems with the visual design were addressed ahead of time.
I also was not a fan of the uniforms, which received well-deserved comparisons to mid-2010s Carolina Crown and CT Johnson (TX) uniforms. Even if their uniforms didn’t feel like Boston, I think it would have been better if they didn’t appear so derivative of other ensembles. My next concern is with the pacing and overall quality of storytelling, primarily with the “drunk sailors” section being after the ship crew encounters the whale for the first time. This caused a very jarring tone shift in and out of the movement that I feel could’ve been solved by moving it to before the previous movement.
Summary:
White Whale was a crowd-pleaser, topping many fans’ favorite and “most robbed” lists. While having fun moments is great and something all corps should strive for, this show fails at being a truly excellent design product if the goal is to be competitive for a top-three finish. Overall, it's not a terrible production, but I’m also concerned about whether or not this is the highest caliber of production their star-studded design team can put together.
Carolina Crown - The Round Table: Echoes of Camelot
What I liked:
Carolina Crown made a significant overhaul to their staff this year, and with those changes, many expected a substantial shift in their show design, and those expectations were met. Despite some inconsistent scoring throughout the season, the percussion was much more prominent than in years to much effect. The brass writing as always was stellar, as it always has been, but with a better backbone in the percussion supporting them, their performance was elevated by extension. I’ve also had a lot of praise for the color guard team; bringing one of their weaker captions of the past few years up to the level of the rest of the corps has been fantastic.
Where they can take the next step:
While I am happy with Crown’s direction, there are still quite a few things I would have liked to see changed. First of all, I thought the visual design was overall unremarkable. The drill felt like it lacked momentum, a great example of this being the drill going into the Crown Set in the closer, which was added late season. I also thought the staging wasn’t conducive to showing off the guard, which may have hurt their scores despite their excellent performance.
Another issue I had was the technical feature in the brass, which stopped all momentum in the show. While this was cool in the 2010s, the activity has evolved to where your technical excerpts should be seamlessly incorporated into the show without changing the pacing. However, my biggest issue was the lack of clarity about what the story was supposed to be, most apparently when King Arthur gets stabbed and supposedly dies before getting up and being just fine with no explanation.
Summary:
My general opinion of this show is indifference. It is not a show I particularly like or dislike. However, significant changes are being made to the corps’ design philosophy, which was a big reason they could propel themselves out of the cursed 4th place spot. The future of Carolina Crown is more promising than it’s been since the mid-2010s, and I’m curious to see if they’ll be able to achieve 2013’s peaks again in the coming seasons.
Bluecoats - The Garden of Love
What I liked:
As a massive fan of the direction Bloo went in 2022 with their narration, I remained excited to see what they had in store for us in 2023. When I found out in the early months of this year (sorry, Bloo) that the basis for the show was a saxophone solo (that I discovered through one of my best friends’ senior recital, shoutout to Daniel) that had been tickling my ears for years, my excitement only grew. When I saw the preview performance in late June on FloMarching, my anticipation changed to awestruckness.
In the previous article, I mentioned that Mandarins’ Sinnerman was my favorite show this year. However, upon another rewatch of The Garden of Love, I changed my mind, and Bluecoats was my favorite of the season. This show was aggressively Bluecoats, with a stunning ballad arrangement like no other corps can do, impressive and seamlessly implemented sound design that pushes the bounds of the activity, goofy uniforms that shouldn’t work but do; it’s got it all for any fan of the Bluecoats such as myself. Their rendition of Anna Meridith’s “Bump” was one of the most challenging things ever fielded by a drum corps just going off of listening demands between the separate brass sections and drumline, and even more than it was difficult, it was a joy to watch. Combine that with the messaging of queer oppression by religious institutions, and you’ve got a show that’ll stick with me for as long as I live.
Where they can take the next step:
Much like with Mandarins and Troopers, my criticisms will be nitpicks. My main problem with the show is the long time at the beginning of the show when the brass does not play. Part of me wished that more of the source music by JacobTV would’ve been creatively portrayed by the brass instead of just in the front ensemble.
My other nitpick would be the changes to “Bump,” watering down the trumpet's sixteenth note ostinato at the end of the movement. It hurt the absolute killer momentum in that movement, and it’s not even about the number of notes being played; it’s about the offbeats in which the trumpet enters, going back to something we already heard earlier in the movement. The change was necessary for cleaning purposes, but it might have maintained some momentum better if the entrances hadn’t changed.
Summary:
Upon revisiting it, The Garden of Love is one of my favorite shows of all time and proves the benefits of a design team sticking together for years. While some shows are better than others, I struggle to think of a Bluecoats show from the past two decades that I’ve watched and not enjoyed, at least in part. Bluecoats have established themselves as a medalist corps, and it feels like the next title should be just around the corner.
Blue Devils - The Cut Outs
What I liked:
There’s not much to preface this show with; the Blue Devils’ results from the past decade speak for themselves. To achieve the corps’ first-ever threepeat, the design team, who have been together for ages, put their heads together to make another production worthy of a dominant season. Structurally, this show is next to flawless. The pacing is excellent, the emotional direction and momentum are carefully crafted and executed, and the killer writing shows off all the corps’ strengths.
The visual design shines in this show, with the color scheme that evolves throughout the show and excellent showcasing of their incredibly consistent color guard. The part of the show I was most excited for since the announcement was the ballad, Joni Mitchell’s “Both Sides Now.” After significant tweaking throughout the season, the Blue Devils gave us the best rendition of the classic folk tune ever fielded in the activity. There’s also the obligatory “anime music” mention; the music arrangement from Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure was infectious in person.
Where they can take the next step:
While I think the show works very well from a purely structural standpoint, I think the deeper theming of the show is weak. The musical selections seem vaguely applicable to the subject matter of Henri Matisse’s art at best and utterly random at worst. This show would fail as a show about Matisse without the excellent visual design, which is very well below the standard the Blue Devils have set for themselves. My one comment on the structural aspect of the show is that the transition into Incident in Jazz felt stilted and uncomfortable. While it improved as the season progressed, it never felt genuinely right to me.
Summary:
While my criticisms are short, the primary objection is scathing and dramatically affects how I rate this show. This doesn’t concern me for the drum corps in the long run because I know this design team consistently puts together a structurally and thematically cohesive product, which is why they are as successful as they are.
Conclusion
That wraps up all my reviews for the twelve finalist shows from this past season of DCI! Criticism and discussion of design quality is something I hope to become more commonplace in this community, primarily because of how enjoyable and constructive it can be. Before we head into the fall high school marching season, this final look at the shows was fun for me, and I hope you enjoyed revisiting all the fantastic productions from this past year with me.
Aaron Blackley is one of the original contributors for General Effect Media. He has a vast knowledge and passion for the marching arts and has worked alongside the likes of HornRank as a ranker and moderator as well as the TxBands.com liveblog team since summer 2021. Aaron currently works front of house at Interstellar BBQ in North Austin. He can be found on Twitter as @GEMAaronB.
I'm sorry, Aaron, but you're going to find precious few people who view this as an actual "Threepeat", given the origin of the term [it's actually copyrighted/trademarked by that ass Pat Riley of LA Lakers fame]. Three consecutive competition years yes, threepeat no - threepeats must be 100% perfect streak, no interruptions of any kind, asterisks or not. I am heartened to see that the estimable Mr. Daniel Montoya, Jr agrees with me (or I with him) on this point.
I think a bigger issue is how many people are going to roll their eyes at any mention of it, whatever it's called, given the overwhelming boredom, even fatigue, with the self-indulgent dreck the BD creative staff are churning out from their Ivory Tower. It truly doesn't matter how brilliantly executed a program is - if it was damningly and unequivocally "written to the sheets" [something I didn't truly understand until these last 2 years showed exactly what that means]; in such a case it will never be "timeless", "groundbreaking", or any other truly distinguishing factor that one would hope is integral to a worthy "threepeat".
Even the most grudging of BD detractors will acknowledge the brilliant execution by the corps members - but the now-borderline tsunami of "sick=of=them" feeling about the BD organization is nearly on par with the hatred the Patriots' organization built up in the NFL: brilliant and dominant play on the field, but Tom Brady et al became quickly unpalatable due to Americans' general dislike of only one group routinely winning it all, even if the streak has breaks in it. No one can be 100% invested in the seasonal enthusiasm for Drum Corps if it seems like after 2 weeks there's already a preordained winner. The BD creative team has been together forever as you mentioned - for me, at least, it is becoming an apparent BAD THING, not a good thing. I would dearly love to see them break out of their very suspect delusions of artistic expertise, and break the mold with.. Gasp!.. something as powerfully thematic and non-standard as what we see from Troopers, as a prime example. Or take a look at what Mandarins have done in only the last 2 years - wildly different but wildly entertaining! Come on Concord cabal - give us some of THAT wildness!
I agree that there was much wasted potential in the design and execution of White Whale, but I am incredibly proud of the members for the level of quality they *did* give us, and the semifinals vs finals variance in the final twist to the story. I'll personally never stop laughing about how the "whale" dancer really stuck with the character while being hauled out, and the production team's cameraman/director sticking with the shot all the way out to the tunnel to reinforce that! For finals night let's be honest, NO ONE saw the end of Ishmael coming after getting something completely different the entire season. Now *THAT* is exactly the sort of "pull it out of your butt" wild twist BD needs so badly.
It is beyond heartbreaking to see one end of the Bay Area be such an overwhelming 900 pound gorilla, to the detriment of the rest of DCI, and the other end - it's sister old-guard corps - be 1 step from actual obliteration due primarily to financial incompetence, among other things. What news and signs about SCV that have been forthcoming since 2023 finals is creating a swelling feeling of dread across the entire Drums Corps world.
Thank you so much, Aaron, for this fascinating 3-parter analysis. It was a nice wrapup to the season. See you around the interwebz!