WGI Color Guard World Championships!

Now before I dive into the immense competition of color guard from this weekend, let me first just mention the most recent DCI show announcements that I have heard:

The Cadets: "Power of Ten"

Troopers: "Wild Horses" (I know I talked about this previously, but now I am confident enough that this way in no way an April Fools joke and truly is their 2015 show.) 

Alright now, on to Color Guard World Champs! University of Dayton Arena was a frenzy this weekend, as color guards and winter guards from all across the country descended upon the city to compete at the very top level! Competition was fierce and the shows were astounding as some of my favorite color guards managed to pull out all the stops and put on their best shows yet, earning the highest scores they received the entire season! I know that previously I have talked about the strong rivalry between Onyx and Pride of Cincinnati and the great debate of who would come out on top. Well its all said and done, and as it turns out, the rival who rose above was Onyx Winter Guard with 96.350 (only 0.05 above Pride!) for their 2015 show, "Cloud Works"! 

But that doesn't mean they came out on top. In fact, Onyx finished in 2nd place in the Independent World Class right behind this year's gold medalist: Santa Clara Vanguard! That's right everybody! SCV won first place with a 98.250 for their 2015 show: "#10 - You'll Never Be Alone"! 

Below is the list of scores from the following classes: Independent World, Independent Open, and Independent A.

As you can see, one of my personal favorite winter guards, Allegoria (color guard of Corri Geis, whom I previously interviewed) placed 3rd in the Independent Class A with a 94.360, their highest score yet! Way to go Allegoria! 

There was also an online competition where fans could vote for their favorite color guards and percussion ensembles within each class from this year. So here is the link to the results of the WGI Fans' Favorite Winners. http://www.wgi.org/contents/Fans-Favorite-Vote.html

Now if I come across any great video from this weekend's final competition, I will be sure to add it up here. But for now, that's all I've got folks. If you ended up going to watch WGI Color Guard World Champs, I hope you had a fantastic time, and if you performed their,  I hope you're happy with the results and with your 2015 season. Congratulations to each and every color guard and winter guard that competed in Dayton this weekend. You finally get to relax, you earned it!

Jersey Surf Remixes "Don't Look Down"?!

Well dang do I have sudden news for you all! I thought about waiting to publish this into next week's post but I wanted to take advantage of how early I found out the news. Chances are that you probably haven't heard yet about the newest collaboration in DCI! Just released at noon today, actress and musician Janina Gavankar posted a music video on YouTube of her own re-imagined remix of the new pop song "Don't Look Down" by Martin Garrix (featuring Usher). Here's the link for the original song's music video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJSdYlAFKqA

Now this song has already become my new favorite pop song over this last week, but this video just makes me love the song so much more. Reason being... Janina's collaboration on the remix was with none other than DCI's own Jersey Surf Drum & Bugle Corps!! That's right everyone! At first you'd think that it is just another Drum Corps prank, but this one is very real. Janina gave no reason in the video's description for why she specifically chose Jersey Surf, but said that her vision for this arrangement came from her desire to return to her roots. Does that mean she once marched Jersey Surf? That would be interesting to know. As you can read in the description, highly extensive work went into creating this video, but I think everyone agrees that it was well worth the effort. I'm sure you will to. Enjoy!

When asked why she did this, Janina said, “I’ve been in love with drum corps since I was 13 years old. The level of musicianship, precision, the passion grabbed me and engrained a work ethic in my brain. I’ve been wanting to get back to my roots... Drum Corps International groups are atop the scholastic performing arts pyramid. Faster, higher, louder... standard-setting for marching arts around the world.” She also went on to explain the recent troubles with funding for American arts education and advocated it's immense importance.

Now in other news, here are a few more announcements I have discovered for DCI shows for this 2015 season.
The Cavaliers: "Game On"

Gold: "Pop Star"

Cascades: "Intergalactic" 

Colts:   "...And A Shot Rings Out: A Johnny Staccato Murder Mystery" (This news is actually a week or two old, but I just found out about it because it certainly wasn't widely publicized.) 

Jersey Surf: "Sun Surfing" (Also older hidden news.) 

Oregon Crusaders: "The Midnight Garden" 

Phantom Regiment: "City of Light" 

And I'm sure we'll be hearing another handful of 2015 show announcements in the near future.

I would also like to briefly mention and congratulate The Cavaliers Indoor Percussion Ensemble for their stellar performance at WGI Indoor Percussion World Champs over the weekend! It was their first ever time performing within the Independent World Class category and managed to come in 9th place overall, with a fantastic final score of  91.413 for their crazy good show "Bring in The Clowns"! Congrats y'all! 

Well that just about covers this fantastic news. Don't forget everybody! Next weekend is the WGI World Championships in Dayton! Even though I won't be able to attend the event, I am very excited to report back everything I find out. Later bloggers!

Show Announcements, Drum Corps Pranks, Tristate Marching Arts, and more!

Its getting close everybody!! Just less than two weeks till WGI World Champs and the much anticipated announcement of the 2015 shows of each DCI corps! I had wished to post every corp's show announcement into one single blog post, but for the sake of relevance I shall announce what I know so far.
Madison Scouts: "78th & Madison"

Coastal Surge: "Cast Into Darkness"

7th Regiment: "The Labyrinth" 

Each of those titles look like they hold potential for some very interesting and powerful shows. I can't wait to hear more! But that brings us to our next topic of the week: Drum Corps Pranks... Knowing that there has been such significant anticipation among the DCI fan base community for the announcement of the 2015 shows, some corps took at advantage of that and pulled some pretty clever and humorous April Fools Day pranks on us. From the Bluecoats performing T-Swift's "Shake It Off", to Blue Knights' shoe partnership, to Spirit of Atlanta's Harry Potter rendition, they really had us going. Here below is the link to your full guide to Drum Corps April Fools' Day Pranks.

http://www.dci.org/news/view.cfm?news_id=92101367-8fd1-46fc-97b4-89f636c4d46f

The thing is, I have an inside source with Troopers and there actually may be some degree of validity to this "Wild Horses" stuff. Guess we'll just have to wait and see! In short news, The Cadets Drum & Bugle Corps from Allentown, PA have just recently announced that they will be conducting their Spring training at Ohio Northern University. I just find this interesting because it is out-of-state for them and a fellow university of Ohio. Fun fact I guess.

Now I'm gonna flip the subject over to WGI. At about this time, every competitive winter guard is firing all engines, working overtime, and polishing every detail of their show in preparation for World Champs in Dayton on the 18th, But this last weekend, dozens of local guards went to showcase their performance at the Tristate Marching Arts (TMA) Championships. According to their mission, TMA is "an organization that serves Winter Guard, Percussion, and performance units. Members of TMA are from scholastic and independent units in the Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio and West Virginia region." The competition was held at East Central High School and although most groups were scholastic-class winter guards, other independent winter guards were in attendance, including Vertigo, INov8 Independent, Allegoria, Pride of Cincinnati, and our own UC Bearcat Band Accents! From what I have heard, each color guard was pulling out all the stops in their performances, especially being their last big show before World Championships. Here below are the scores from the independent winter guards.

Allegoria is extremely proud of their 1st place achievement and you can't help but notice the profound jump in their score from their last show two weeks ago at Xavier. Scoring an 84.48 there, they managed to improve the show and pull an impressive 90.71 here at Tristate. This bodes well for them as they make their final preparations for World Champs. And lets not forget Pride of Cincinnati, who (although the only world-class winter guard in attendance) scored at phenomenal 96.20. But they know that they still have a lot more work to do if they wish to beat their rival winter guard, Onyx. 

That's all for now everybody! Hopefully I hear some more show announcements in the days to come. But until then, keep marching strong!