BDinkel wrote:95 BD is my favorite show of all time, but when you watch Cavies 95, even I have to give it up. Nearly flawless, with a pretty ground-breaking visual design.
Great visual design. Also one of the most boring brass books I've ever heard from a DCI champion. I didn't think it was possible to make "The Planets" a snooze-fest, but the Cavaliers did it. Great opener (Mars), great closer (Jupiter, part III), but everything in between was a snooze-fest (Venus, Mercury, Jupiter parts I and some of II).
Phantom 96 is also probably one of my favorite shows of all time, especially the first 2 minutes, but you can't deny that BD 96 was also excellent, though in different ways.
Obviously, no one could touch Phantom's hornline in 96, they were absolutely incredible... but its easy to forget that the Blue Devils' percussion and guard were equally amazing that season, not to mention the show itself. I think they had a 9.9 in percussion finals night, if I remember correctly. One of the most ambitious books ever written at that point. I really enjoyed Phantom 96, but I don't think it grabbed you from start to finish like BD 96.
Ironically, with as much as I like Shostakovich and as much as I like Phantom Regiment, 96 Phantom doesn't even make my Top 3 of Phantom shows.
BD 96... oh, it grabs you right off the bat, sure. And the drumline was phenomenal. But that show was kind of like the Cavies the year before: the middle six or seven minutes were just wholly unmemorable for me. And I thought Phantom won the "intensity" and musical effect portions by miles.