I started my musical training as a trumpet player--alright I took about 4 weeks of piano lessons when I was 7 or 8, but at 10 I started learning the trumpet and stuck with it through high school. Going to marching band camp at the end of each summer to get ready for the football halftime show was an annual tradition. My band camp experience was not as raunchy as the American Pie film shows, but it certainly was a raucous good time.
All that to say I am a bit pre-programmed to like Blast--which comes mostly from the drum and bugle corps tradition, while incorporating elements of modern dance, street buskering, clowning, circus, and show choir. Even if I did not have a marching band background, I think I would appreciate Blast. The show is pure spectacle, and most of that spectacle is provided by the hardworking cast who play brass instruments, dance, tumble, twirl rifles and flags, drum on anything rolling by, and even sing at a couple points.
The range of musical styles offered is blessedly wide and blessedly free of stereotypical brass music, so you never get tired of any one look or sound. I appreciated the inclusion of Aaron Copland's Appalachian Spring (based on the Shaker tune "'Tis a Gift to be Simple". I might have wished for one more slower-paced piece to balance all the (pun alert) full-blown numbers, but that is a minor complaint. The show (and the drum and bugle corps world) are very White, and some performers tend to get a bit scary aggressive and high-five happy. Again, I wanted this performance style to be in use of a story, or at least an emotion, which it did accomplish in the the first act "Loss".
I watched the DVD extras that are included, and while they showed things like how the show was born on the campus of Indiana University, I found some of the performer interviews cloying. I can handle one or maybe two 23 year olds telling me "This is the best experience of my life. I've never worked so hard, or developed such close friendships. What a great opportunity." But it did go on a bit. What will this show lead to for these kids? I reckon that more than several of them are now (bitterness alert) aerobic instructors.
Blast
Music by a bunch of people
Lyrics not much
Cast: a lot of Midwestern recent college grads kids who had just "aged out" of drum and bugle corps. Some of them are hot, all of them are fit.
Filmed in 2001 in London
All that to say I am a bit pre-programmed to like Blast--which comes mostly from the drum and bugle corps tradition, while incorporating elements of modern dance, street buskering, clowning, circus, and show choir. Even if I did not have a marching band background, I think I would appreciate Blast. The show is pure spectacle, and most of that spectacle is provided by the hardworking cast who play brass instruments, dance, tumble, twirl rifles and flags, drum on anything rolling by, and even sing at a couple points.
The range of musical styles offered is blessedly wide and blessedly free of stereotypical brass music, so you never get tired of any one look or sound. I appreciated the inclusion of Aaron Copland's Appalachian Spring (based on the Shaker tune "'Tis a Gift to be Simple". I might have wished for one more slower-paced piece to balance all the (pun alert) full-blown numbers, but that is a minor complaint. The show (and the drum and bugle corps world) are very White, and some performers tend to get a bit scary aggressive and high-five happy. Again, I wanted this performance style to be in use of a story, or at least an emotion, which it did accomplish in the the first act "Loss".
I watched the DVD extras that are included, and while they showed things like how the show was born on the campus of Indiana University, I found some of the performer interviews cloying. I can handle one or maybe two 23 year olds telling me "This is the best experience of my life. I've never worked so hard, or developed such close friendships. What a great opportunity." But it did go on a bit. What will this show lead to for these kids? I reckon that more than several of them are now (bitterness alert) aerobic instructors.
Blast
Music by a bunch of people
Lyrics not much
Cast: a lot of Midwestern recent college grads kids who had just "aged out" of drum and bugle corps. Some of them are hot, all of them are fit.
Filmed in 2001 in London
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