Friday 31 July 2015

ABDC Season 8 Episode 1.

So ABDC started this week and I managed to get a copy of the video thanks to Randy Moon on youtube, check out his channel.
So its been 3 years since the last ABDC and they started off with a bang! Ne-yo opened the show with some of his songs, accompanied by all returning crews for a special performance, all was good, So I'm going to start off with the crews first.

SuperCrew:
I didn't see season 2, so I don't know if they've improoved, I started off with Season 4.
I don't usually like Bboy crews, apart from Quest, but these did a good job at opening the show, I thought they'd be mostly doing Bboy stuff and tricks but when the song dropped, that cool footwork they did was cool, the opening also on the steps, reminded me a little of IaMmE's connecting stuff.
It was a feel good routine but not the strongest of the night.
I'm going to mention the last part with the holding of one guy, and dropping him toward the floor because of the following performances.

 IaMmE:
All I've seen over the past few weeks on facebook is "where's Chachi" or "where's Jaja" but more so Chachi, and I've noticed most of these people seem to be kids who are either girls who look up to chachi, or little boys that fancy her, I like Chachi, but I don't particularly care about her not returning, what I care about the most is the choreo the boys come up with.
The opening with the books were cool, reminded me alot of that microsoft surface ad which I think Phil had some involvement with, and I'm glad the paper plane went where it was suppose to! usually when I make them, they spin or turn and go somewhere not wanted.
That weird flip Tamara did was awesome, then followed by a sick trick of their jumping off of their backs, and heres what I guess is the brainbangin? though I wouldn't say its brainbangin, but it was cool, the next section with the wubs had alot of cool choreo and then the ending with Tamara doing the splits on the chairs was amazing, I think she's a good replacement for Chachi ;0

Elektrolytes:
I almost didn't recognise the song with the opening, the opening choreo was interesting, then the housing and cool footwork for the drop was cool, then a guy does the splits and twists down, this reminded me of the ending of Supercrew's performance, the next section was pretty cool, followed by the floor crawls? then some lovely wubs, wish MTV hadn't zoomed in for most of it, the choreo with the chains were cool, using them like Nunchucks, the ending was a little odd, I know it was meant to look like the guy fell off and was dead, I'm curious what the audience saw haha.

Kinjas:
This was a little dissapointing, the choreo was nice and really smooth, but I've seen alot of Kinjas stuff on youtube that was alot better than this, you can see some of the Jabbawockeez influence in it, I think my favourite part was probably the footwork, I feel like I've seen this choreo before, I think when watching the first time, I got alot of nostalgia from watching it, but yea... I've seen better stuff on youtube than this performance, was just expecting a little more from it.

we Are Heroes:
Ok so, when the show started with Ne-yo, and We Are Heroes opened up as the first crew on stage, I thought this choreo was a lot better, and that they had stepped it up from Season 4, and the fact there were new members and one of them being Marie Poppins, I thought it'd be amazing was really dissapointed, also... Diamonds by Rihanna? thats an odd choice seeing as the leader, Hiro is a popper, you'd expect her to pick a dubstep track by Skrillex or something.
The opening was great, it was somewhat beautiful, then they leant backwards and Marie didn't lean as for as the other 3 that were infront, it looked odd, then they all reached up, then it went incredibly girly, but weird and happy, they said in their package that they can go as hard as the guys, but I didn't see it, the next part had one of the new girls do a roll and into splits, followed by weird tutting before the wubs, which I didn't think were needed until the wubs came along, then Marie and Hiro weren't in sync with each other, I thought the next part with the chest popping was a little boring, the next part was pretty cool with the other girl doing some weird thing, but the others seemed out of place, they should have "framed" it better, maybe all connected as a circle or something.
The following tutting section, Hiro and Marie weren't synced up again, so it looked weird.
The Diamond at the end was my favourite part, they were voted to go, and I see why, hopefully they step it up next week, I'd like to see Marie choreo something...
Oh and before I forget,  The girl at the back in the opening was in a splits pose and rolled down, It felt like I had seen this for the 3rd time.

Quest Crew:
This was good, opening all rock like, good tricks, Hok's nuts almost being crushed, fun choreo, I liked the cool thing D-trix did, the part with Hok on the guys back, the drum sounds when Hok went, then the other 2 joined in, the guy on the left wasnt on beat, and then we have our first over / under / middle flip trick, which are always fun to see in Quests performances, the following footwork looked like alot of fun, and Terada's flip at the end was really cool.

So this season started well, I'm looking forward mostly to seeing IaMmE, Quest and Kinjas, I did go into this thinking Elektrolytes would be the ones to be voted off first, but they did a good job, the Judges however, and host, Jason is pretty good on the eye, nice to look at but he doesn't have the personality of Mario, I remember a few times Mario would join in a little and do a few jokey dances when the judges were giving feed back, the judges... I would have prefered more people who know about dance, T-pain said "blah blah blah sandwich" or something similar, instead of the professional word, I see Judges, for example, if someones tutting, they'll say "that really cool thing you did with your hands" instead of "The tutting was on point" or whatever, they seemed to nicey nice, I miss JC being honest about the routines, these 3 don't seem to have anything bad to say... until ya know, the end when they voted We Are Heroes.