Blue Devils Drumline 2022 || Aged Out Reacts with TJ Choquette 

Update as of ATL show: BD is TJ-approved! Some dirt here and there in the lot, but very good and much improved in-person. Additionally, center snare is still beating the absolute hell out of the snare break tap off. Twas appreciated.

i love how at 6:41 they all have the exact same head tilt reaction at the same time

Great reaction vid as always. One thing I really like about this group is that the members are very thankful and humble; I’ve been thanked by them several times either in person or over Instagram every time I check them out in the lot. I hope they continue to improve and make a big push for the Sanford this year!

I gave one of the snare drummers some playing advice over the years. When he got his contract he went back to the first place we interacted years ago and thanked me for being helpful, kind, and supportive. Jacob is a super humble kid who deserves the opportunity and has like 3!?!?!? more summers. Wild to think how good this group could be once they have vets. All the inconsistency we hear early on has been typical of BD early season for my entire time in the activity. Sure, it’s a little amplified by the age of the group. BD traditionally spends a lot more time doing visual/staging in spring training than anyone else, and the last month they clean up fast. The last 3 weeks of 2019 speaks for itself in that regard. Solid video once again guys. Cheers!

I see why they picked this line this year. They have a very high ceiling. They just lack consistently staying locked in and playing together. Next year and the year after, they're gonna be monsters. Especially since most of these kids are marching at a very high level in the spring.

Devs have massively improved over the last week or two. Everyone still has work to do but they’ll get there. Devils will be really good by finals week the way they tend to clean up. Not really worried about this crew.

This drumline is going to be insane down the road.

I usually stay off the comments but as an "old dude," I am excited for BD. The members clearly listen and respond positively to the staff and you can already see the "buy in" to the vibe of the corps. They are young but have great hands and I advise everyone to be patient as this group grows. Thanks for what you guys are posting up and commenting on! Cheers!

6:42 is the universal expression for “that was dirty”

That snare break with the plastic tops gives me shades of ‘94 vibes.

Great video. Always good to hear you two react with TJ and share your insights.

I generally think most reaction RU-vid videos are trash, but I love y'all's reaction vids. I think as a younger drummer watching lot vids I never noticed the dirt, or if I did I couldn't pinpoint WHY it was dirty. Observations like the one about the tap space on the tap fives are super helpful because they show that even the people in the top groups are human. Everyone ticks sometimes and nobody is clean all the time. It also shows me the things to pay attention to within my own playing: how consistent is the space in my own tap rolls? I think these vids are a super helpful resource for young drummers and I wish I had them when I was in highschool.

Love the commentary. No sugarcoating and credit where it’s deserved. 💪🏻

Love all this early season content we’re getting!

Who's the center quad? P.S. Love this diverse, international group of snare drummers.

Great video! TJ, I thought the same thing about the snare's body with the aggressive foot, but then just saw a full ensemble video and the foot lines up with the front ensemble music.

I feel the same. This line is young. I remember grown men with beards and a lot taller

16:35 my response is he should’ve been marching BD for years Laurent has some of the best hands I’ve seen even when we were younger

gonna be marching with some of them this indoor season with thesis indoor! yall should check out thesis someday, they started last year in PIO and this year we’re doing PIW!

Thank you guys for educating me on the finer details. My humble request is that you cover the Troopers battery this summer.

TJ is the homie, great videos as always boys 🤘🏼

Last night in Murfreesboro- drums= 1st-Coats 2nd-BD and 3rd Boston. Sometime the scores get crazy I guess.

There’s no doubt in my mind the staff know what they're doing

Can’t wait to see em live in late July. Along with Boston.

13:35 I was thinking the exact same thing. The one thing I think Vanguard has going against them this year is winning fatigue. My guess is judges have gotten a little tired of the same sound coming from Vanguard for almost a decade; even if it sounds incredible every time.

Finally solid DCI content!!!

From what I understand, the snare line simply looks young. There are 20 and 21 year olds in the line. Look at the lines from the 70s & 80s to see grown men playing drums. LOL

First AGAIN!!! Great content! Keep it up!

Center 3 💙

thanks for calling it as you see/hear it, honesty offers credibility, I um... 13:35 thats all

Boston’s Bass Drummer went over to Devils. Just an observation

Babe, wake up, new TJ video

We love some good TJ content

They got covid hands. Tons of chops from playing at home but group sound isn't as much there.

I’m not sure if you realize later in the vid or if anyone else said but around 11:50 the quads sound like that because they put snare guts I believe on their drum 4

This line will stay together for a few years so that’s a plus. It’s also just early July. Gocks are best when used unexpectedly or at the end of a dense feature IMO.

Lets not forget 2014, some serious dirt the first half of the season. Ending respectably clean with a ring. I have a feeling they will be fine by the end

July 27th- Hattiesburg Show- BD only .1 behind Boston in drums. (18.4 - 18.5) Looks like BD is cleaning up quite a bit. Boston may have had an off night. Who knows? Interesting nonetheless as usual.

Maybe topic for a future video. The evolution of drum writing. Do you think drumline books have less and less flow to them?

Boston has the best and hardest book this year. Hands down🙌

Love you, Teej!

Was talking about how young they look the other day with someone, and we came to the conclusion that for BD as well as all the other corps, it’s pretty safe to say that on average this is the oldest that these corps have ever been because of the age out extensions. Kinda interesting to think about

Are those Hybrid Grey heads and not the System Blue?

Absolutely loving the early season coverage!! Are there any plans of doing BK coverage soon? 👀

Y’all have to react to colts this year. They are 🔥🔥🔥

For those of you who weren't at the MidCal(ifornia) show, the judges were not inside the field. All judges were standing to the left and to the right of the pit area. They never set foot inside the field to get infront of the drumlines. Hence why everyone is shock of the drum scores. BD were the most entertaining group by a mile, Vanguard was boring perfection in their all white uniforms.

TJ said the same thing I commented about a week ago!!! lol Back in the day(80s-90s) these guys were much older with beards and mustaches... They were very intimidating to average High School drummer....... They also wore Hats! lol But Now??? They look like little kids........ So Different. Carolina Crown fan..........

TJ’s hilarious lol Also put some respect on gocks

Line needs 20 cc's of murray gusseck stat

I would love to talk you guys someday...

Good enough to be undefeated so far though. (as of July 27th) Just think when the drum line cleans up a bit. Goodbye everyone else. Who's getting second?

First time watching the videos really cool and great peer review for drumline... I have a question, the two gentlemen on the podcast did they play for DCI and if so which groups?...

They are so young but beating SCV in drums.

For the algorithm. ✊

@2:19 "this is the youngest BD snareline I've ever seen." - ME: There's new faces everywhere & BD's fresh from the grocery store, just like everyone else this year.

Bruh just watch tjs screen the whole video🤣

What is that squat down thing they are doing at 15:09 ? Is that like a reference to some other drumline thing or what? I think it looks funny

Is this the first year using ludwig drums?

“Execution, interesting!” I’m done I just keep commenting as I watch

Bluecoats 2022 coming soon? yea I think this older video doesn't do them as much justice. as of right now they have already made vast improvements from what I heard on the Drumline Archive's most recent BD video ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-ttOTfgf74hg.html

Definitely a young line this year… I appreciate your comments on their inconsistencies as well as pointing out that Vanguard at this point is much cleaner and are not scoring as well… But I also notice that you guys give some automatic credit to them as DCI always does because they are “The Blue Devils“. By that, I just mean that when you listened to Vanguard, there wasn’t much to be able to point out that needed to be fixed… so you don’t say much. It was almost like the fact that they would be dirty, then get clean earned them credit, whereas Vanguard was just clean the whole time. Then there’s the difficulty levels… if you actually broke down the two books phrase by phrase, BD’s book is arguably not any harder than Vanguard’s. Because it’s not clean, you seem willing to let the excuse be that it’s a hard book… but again, other lines are much cleaner with very hard books; what exactly makes BD’s books harder though? There’s not that much separation in difficulty in my view. And Vanguard doesn’t just stand there arced up… that’s just not really accurate. I do enjoy the comments though. You guys are doing a good job at breaking down something that is actually mostly subjective… and that’s also as hard as BD’s book! 👍🥁

I miss the balls out early 80s, Those Ludwig snares have more tone than anyone else, if they keep these members together in 2 years the blue smoke band will return 🤘

I thought it was just me. This a very young group. I thought it was blue devils b.

tj keeping it a little too real too keep the fan favorite badge but I’m still rocking with him

The B Corps is really playing a lot of notes this year..

question: are all of you guys upper battery folks? because bass tone sounded nice but they were not super clean…..

Yerp

The center snare marched POW last winter. Which means he was 10th or lower in the Pulse organization snare pecking order. The first 10 in auditions make Pulse, the rest make POW. Make of that what you will. It looks like this is the chance of a life time for some of these kids, because of the Covid seasons disruptions. I'm getting a POW like vibe from this line. Starting the season really rough (while the Pulse snare line was extremely clean 2 months before WGI finals this past year. that's why they won), then getting to a point at the end of the season that they have cleaned up so much, you are amazed that it's the same line. There's a good chance that BD's season will go that way this year. But please, there is no way this line should be within a point of Vanguard right now. I think the field judge not being on the actual field has a lot to do with that. When the designers hide the battery in the back of the field for most of the show and the horn line is blasting in between, it's really hard to hear dirt. Next year, please vote to put the execution judges back in the middle of the field where they belong. And save the 'safety' argument. For 48 years i don't recall any judges being seriously injured or dying on the field.

I hate those Ludwig marching drums, if you look at the quads you can see a few have off kilter drums 1 and 2. And the snares are just heavier, more poorly made Yamahas, same goes for the basses. I have no idea why so many people switched to using them this season.

Lack of hats and shoulder pads makes them look 12 years old. Hats especially add height and can make kids look more mature/intimidating

Vanguard is better this year and will grab Sanford stakes in the finals.BD's rookie snareline will clean up but hyping is typical and can get you to overplay.accents.

More like the dirt devils

So what exactly happened to the system blue drums? I remember watch a video with Scott Johnson saying how good those drums were going to be. The sound was supposed to amazing. He was all gung-ho about these new drums. Now when I saw the video it was before they actually started to use them. Then once I saw the blue devils playing on them…………OMG they were the worse sounding drums I had ever heard. Lol I didn’t even like the look of them. So if someone can elaborate on why they went to Ludwig drums instead of those I would appreciate it.

No disrespect to BD intended, but I don’t understand how they are consistently beating SCV in drums right now

Blue devils are mid af

In all respect, y’all have a much more coherent podcast without TJ. It’s distracting when he’s on