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I was able to watch the last 5 bands in prelims & all of finals.

 

Prelims

Wylie was solid & Boyd did a good job on their show. Eaton however had the unlucky draw of following Hebron & Mesquite John Horn. More on JH in a minute...

 

Hebron was absolutely incredible. Their prelim performance was a joy to listen to. They have such a pure well balanced full band sound that you sometimes forget you are watching a "marching band". I think all the rain we've received took away marching time, so Mr. Sealy had even more time to work "Concert F", & man did it pay off!

 

With that said, I was blown away by Mesquite John Horn. The show was very creative & the "wake up!" wall of sound the brass produced was impressive.

 

Also have to give props to the Sousaphone solo. I think this band will be challenging the "favorites" this year & in the years to come. And if people judge a band's performance on the field, as opposed to being swayed by a bands reputation, then JH shd do very well at State. It doesnt appear they will be going to BOA SASR.

 

Finals

 

I scored it as follows:

 

10/27/2018 STATE UIL Marching Band Area C Finals

 

this symbol:

I

means there's a gap between the respective bands.

 

HHS 1

FLOMO 2

I

John Horn HS 3

I

I

I

Sachse HS 4

Wylie HS 5

I

MHS 6

LHS 7

I

I

Berkner HS 8

McKinney Boyd 8

Rockwall 10 8

 

I was really surprised by Marcus & Rockwall moving on & Sachse & Wylie staying home.

 

Looking at the judges scoring (see attached), it looks like there were strong differences about what makes one band better than another. It's a shame UIL doesn't throw out the hi & low, but no one ever said life was fair. :/

 

All in all, very impressive bands in the Area "C" finals. I think this will be the last year of the "LISD lock at the top".

 

Good luck to all!

 

Paul

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I was able to watch the last 5 bands in prelims & all of finals.

 

Prelims

Wylie was solid & Boyd did a good job on their show. Eaton however had the unlucky draw of following Hebron & Mesquite John Horn. More on JH in a minute...

 

Hebron was absolutely incredible. Their prelim performance was a joy to listen to. They have such a pure well balanced full band sound that you sometimes forget you are watching a "marching band". I think all the rain we've received took away marching time, so Mr. Sealy had even more time to work "Concert F", & man did it pay off!

 

With that said, I was blown away by Mesquite John Horn. The show was very creative & the "wake up!" wall of sound the brass produced was impressive.

 

Also have to give props to the Sousaphone solo. I think this band will be challenging the "favorites" this year & in the years to come. And if people judge a band's performance on the field, as opposed to being swayed by a bands reputation, then JH shd do very well at State. It doesnt appear they will be going to BOA SASR.

 

Finals

 

I scored it as follows:

 

10/27/2018 STATE UIL Marching Band Area C Finals

 

this symbol:

I

means there's a gap between the respective bands.

 

HHS 1

FLOMO 2

I

John Horn HS 3

I

I

I

Sachse HS 4

Wylie HS 5

I

MHS 6

LHS 7

I

I

Berkner HS 8

McKinney Boyd 8

Rockwall 10 8

 

I was really surprised by Marcus & Rockwall moving on & Sachse & Wylie staying home.

 

Looking at the judges scoring (see attached), it looks like there were strong differences about what makes one band better than another. It's a shame UIL doesn't throw out the hi & low, but no one ever said life was fair. :/

 

All in all, very impressive bands in the Area "C" finals. I think this will be the last year of the "LISD lock at the top".

 

Good luck to all!

 

Paul

Based on scores at both at prelims and finals, Marcus was clearly in 3rd place (both in “place” score and numeric score). They even tied Hebron for first in music at Finals. Their prelims run was stronger than finals, but they performed at 9:30 am then again 8:15 pm, so energy level was off a bit. Short story: their music is hard, and they play it well.

 

Hebron’s 2nd place may’ve been a fluke, I think. They got a single 4 mixed in from one judge. If they had a 2 instead, they could’ve won it. Especially if you throw out the high and low (they would’ve tied for 1st). Either way, FloMo and Hebron could trade spots on any given day.

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Based on scores at both at prelims and finals, Marcus was clearly in 3rd place (both in “place” score and numeric score). They even tied Hebron for first in music at Finals. Their prelims run was stronger than finals, but they performed at 9:30 am then again 8:15 pm, so energy level was off a bit. Short story: their music is hard, and they play it well.

 

Hebron’s 2nd place may’ve been a fluke, I think. They got a single 4 mixed in from one judge. If they had a 2 instead, they could’ve won it. Especially if you throw out the high and low (they would’ve tied for 1st). Either way, FloMo and Hebron could trade spots on any given day.

That one music judge was definitely wacko. I think Hebron is on another level musically right now, but needs to tighten up on the marching. Flower Mound is definitely performing better than last year, it's hard to find visual errors watching them. Super clean!

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That one music judge was definitely wacko. I think Hebron is on another level musically right now, but needs to tighten up on the marching. Flower Mound is definitely performing better than last year, it's hard to find visual errors watching them. Super clean!

I agree.  Hebron is definitely on another level musically.  They are dirty visually - nothing that can't be fixed quickly.  I really hope they can clean it up by next weekend.  I was happy to see John Horn advance. They truly surprised me. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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That seemed true across the state. Keller’s 10? Wha’....? Granted, I wasn’t there to see them, but that was a case of “one of these things is not like the other” and made me squint.

Kindof begs the question...could Keller have even won? Other than that one judge, they had great scores from the rest of the judges and looked to be on track to finish first but that one judge severely brought them down in both prelims in finals to a point where there was no way to recover. The judge was dead set on his opinion (which he is entitled to, that’s his job) but there’s nothing the band could’ve done.

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Kindof begs the question...could Keller have even won? Other than that one judge, they had great scores from the rest of the judges and looked to be on track to finish first but that one judge severely brought them down in both prelims in finals to a point where there was no way to recover. The judge was dead set on his opinion (which he is entitled to, that’s his job) but there’s nothing the band could’ve done about it to please them.

Dan’s podcast goes into that today. It’s a good listen.

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I was able to watch the last 5 bands in prelims & all of finals.

 

Prelims

Wylie was solid & Boyd did a good job on their show. Eaton however had the unlucky draw of following Hebron & Mesquite John Horn. More on JH in a minute...

 

Hebron was absolutely incredible. Their prelim performance was a joy to listen to. They have such a pure well balanced full band sound that you sometimes forget you are watching a "marching band". I think all the rain we've received took away marching time, so Mr. Sealy had even more time to work "Concert F", & man did it pay off!

 

With that said, I was blown away by Mesquite John Horn. The show was very creative & the "wake up!" wall of sound the brass produced was impressive.

 

Also have to give props to the Sousaphone solo. I think this band will be challenging the "favorites" this year & in the years to come. And if people judge a band's performance on the field, as opposed to being swayed by a bands reputation, then JH shd do very well at State. It doesnt appear they will be going to BOA SASR.

 

Finals

 

I scored it as follows:

 

10/27/2018 STATE UIL Marching Band Area C Finals

 

this symbol:

I

means there's a gap between the respective bands.

 

HHS 1

FLOMO 2

I

John Horn HS 3

I

I

I

Sachse HS 4

Wylie HS 5

I

MHS 6

LHS 7

I

I

Berkner HS 8

McKinney Boyd 8

Rockwall 10 8

 

I was really surprised by Marcus & Rockwall moving on & Sachse & Wylie staying home.

 

Looking at the judges scoring (see attached), it looks like there were strong differences about what makes one band better than another. It's a shame UIL doesn't throw out the hi & low, but no one ever said life was fair. :/

 

All in all, very impressive bands in the Area "C" finals. I think this will be the last year of the "LISD lock at the top".

 

Good luck to all!

 

Paul

 

I disagree with this take. Super proud of Rockwall and John Horn. They were extremely clean and their shows were difficult as well. Sachse was moderately clean but not really state level impressive, Wylie just needed more cleaning. LISD is going to dominate this area as long as they are in it, they are miles better than any of the other bands even Marcus is still extremely impressive despite Drinkwater leaving. 

 

My personal rankings would be 

Flomo

Hebron

Marcus

I

I

I

I

I

Wylie

I

JH

Rockwall

Berkner

Boyd

I

I

Lewisville

Sachse

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North Mesquite was truly robbed. They didn’t advance to finals and in all honesty, time placements really played a part yesterday.. They are an amazing band.

I definitely agree. They are truly an amazing band, their show was extremely difficult and they are absolutely a state level band. The show maybe wasn't as clean as others because of the difficulty but I also agree the time slot played a role.

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Dan’s podcast goes into that today. It’s a good listen.

I mean he doesn’t do a very good job of explaining the situation. He glosses over the reason why Keller’s score was bigger than Waxahachie’s. No mention of why the announcement was made at the time for Keller winning. When they now say the rule never existed and they should have announced Waxa as the champion at the contest.

 

It’s more of a gloss over of the situation than going in on it. This also proves the problem of bad judges that UIL has been riddled with for years. Last state cycle the Woodlands almost didn’t make state because of poor judging. And we all have numerous examples of bands missing finals or state because of poor judging.

 

The UIL system needs an overhaul in some capacity, whether it is judging standards, reworking of the sheets, better caption assignments, changing the way groups are scored, etc. The system shouldn’t leave as much doubt as it does.

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Just saw a video of Hebron from prelims and it’s spectacular!

 

However, there is some noticeable dirt (especially visually). What makes their visual program so hard is their field coverage is insane and the drill leaves little room for errors. Overall the music and visual didn’t feel as crisp as I was expecting. With a few days left to clean I wonder of they bit off a little more than they can chew. I’m being nitpicky though, I really loved what I saw and I bet finals was even better!

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I want to know what judge 2 was smoking. Scoring Marcus musically higher than both FloMo & Hebron is an interesting choice, to say the least. :)

 

I think Rockwall & Marcus advancing vs Sacshe & Wylie Comes down to personal philosophy.

 

I prefer to see bands stretch outside their comfort zone. I am definitely from the "peak at State" mould. I think that Marcus & Rockwall are close to their respective tops & they will not be able to improve much from Saturday. But IMO, they are marching easier shows. So even if they improve, the difficulty of the music & show will still be the same.

 

Wylie & Sacshe both attempted showes more complex. Both of them were right on the edge of what they could realistically achieve. In other words, they had to stretch uncomfortably. That's how we grow. In fact, I thought Wylie started out at area just OK, , but as the performance continued it got better & better.

 

Also I just loved Sacshe's technology concept & what they were trying to do. I wd have loved to seen what their finished product wd have looked like in San Antonio.

 

With that said, I can certainly see putting Rockwall & Marcus in the top 5. They were clean both musically & technically. And As an LISD parent I wd love to be presently surprised in San Antonio to have 3 LISD schools make both finals. :)

 

GLTA!

 

Paul

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