Vidal28

I can CTJ winning this, potentially with some decent cushioning as well. It’s looking for both this contest and looking forward to grand nats, they’re a little bit underrated coming in. They’ve gone and won this contest before, they’ve been there, and they’re most importantly right in their own backyard, they’ll be very loose, comfortable and ready to perform their behemoth of a show and make a statement, at least in my approximation that’s what they can potentially do this weekend, a win is definitely in the cards.

Performing in near comparable competition back-to-back or perhaps having a really strong block of bands all performing one after another I feel is a boon for those that get the chance to. There’s more of an opportunity for judges to have a more easily comparable standard of performance in those cases and it’ll lead to those groups being adjudicated more properly I feel like anyways. I think it helps both groups out.

The set drill starting point that Hebron typically employs might give the vibes of an old-fashioned approach, but it definitely is a show that’ll grab the spectators attention with that Monstrous and heavy opening hit, for how much Hebron stuffs into their shows with their music programming it really flows well, I think personally quite a bit more than some other groups. The ballad is fantastic, the pace of the closer is blazing, especially with how much they’re moving throughout it, it honestly felt as if I was watching at 1.25x speed with how brisk it felt they were playing their material, it’s so impressive for me personally. I see them as a no-brainer for the music caption in SA at least. I personally don’t see how one judge in both prelims and finals of Area C had flower mound over them in that category but UIL judging is always an enigma as well😦

https://www.uiltexas.org/music/marching-band/area Wow, much less of a headache finding recaps than I thought it would be, awesome🎉

I really never got that “unbeatable” vibe from Vandegrift in early-mid season, even though of course they were performing and placing very well in what they were attending. So much can change with the contest format, and especially when you have all the heavy hitters coming together in San Antonio these next few weeks, all bets are off👀

I wholly agree with these placements, fantastic long-sought breakthrough achievements for some while some frequent mainstays of UIL state are mixed in! I’m glad it was a bit unpredicatable in such a tough area to qualify in!! Congrats to everyone that made it in and to everyone that played in finals tonight!

Would love a recording of Hebron’s performance tonight👀👀

A conversation to be had another time centering around the “chicken or the egg” nature of the limited rehearsal time(compared to outside of Texas) and whether that is an excuse, or the cause of why Texas groups may lack in some certain design aspects. And I think it’s good to stick to the facts of the matter that those limitations exist, the location of Grand Nats being quite far from Texas of course can be another factor for a stressor to band programs that wanna make the trip compared to Midwestern groups that have that lessened with their geography. I won’t really account for that so much as the actual practice time that’s afforded to the schools here, and would very much love to envision the playing field being evened up in that respect alone, seeing what impacts that would have in the first few years after it’s implemented, production value, performance, expression, and complexity from Texas groups would, just based on my speculation of course not matter of fact, just be quite insane to see. This conversation is definitely not new, but it’s always fun to think about!

I am always cautiously optimistic about our hopes, mostly ‘cause I’m a big Texas homer. Just like last time around, 2 out of the three can always be in the cards!

I am hopeful personally that if what many people are saying is true in this contingent of Texas bands attending Grand Nats being the strongest ever, I personally think 2019 still has a bit more sparkle considering how well every band did and performed!??Back to my main point, Texas still holds the crown and with that, the distinct style of Texas marching band still will hold a lot of sway with how bands will be judged, even if other out-state schools have more proclivities to other captions(GE, and Visual especially) it also helps that the MUSICAL styles of every band attending have their own flavor, same with 2019, it leaves more of an collective impression in my book personally than perhaps Avon’s or BA’s unique visual design considering there’s more of the other distinct identifier of Texas groups and others. With the contest itself, if a Texas band can win 4A class champion in semis that could prove to be the difference ultimately. I’m definitely aware of my biases, but hey, I know what I enjoy when it comes to the activity and am glad that here at home there’s so much of that here!

FloMo’s opener is spectacular, hard agree on that. The direction and the way the tone continually changes as it continues kinda like what you’d expect from Dr. Suess, the very beginning reminding me of Hebron 2019 with the warmth of the flute opening and narration, but just more interactive as Hebron’s known to already be pretty much in their first drill set prior to playing. And then the band starts popping up from the backfield with the music taking a hard turn very much reminiscent of BD for sure. Great playing from the pit and then the ever so glorious warm opening hit, very well done from flo-mo, I think they’re gonna force themselves into medal contention at Nats. With how well they go about preparation, many saying how much they’ve already improved, i think it has more legs than our other Team Texas shows, except probably CTJ and that’s saying a lot?

I definitely have my preferred choice of the winner in Hebron tonight, the musicality is just simply off the charts, my fav sections being the low brass all day every day with just how they were able to bring out this dark sound even further from Hebron that we don’t usually hear them have a full musical program of. For FloMo I will definitely say their opener is fantastic, I very much love the presentation of the whimsy and oddities that the show has to offer, along with the amazingly talented soloists they posses at the start. Their woodwinds are incredible, so much to enjoy about their show, but to me, nothing beats just how locked in Hebron was in tackling that repertoire and leaving me flabbergasted? FloMo’s has lots of heart and is so well-produced I’m very much hoping they contend at Grand Nats?? but I’m hoping Hebron wins tonight!

It was definitely the spot you could tell that they enjoy playing the most, i personally felt a lot of energy down here close to the field on the 50 but it may register differently in other parts of the stands!

Stumbled onto that video just now, what good fortune haha

Ahhh, I always enjoy this contest, it’ll be great to catch both prelims and finals and get a good read of all the finalists’ shows twice, especially the GN attendees, we’ll see what other groups have improved since their first competitions as well! Familiar venue to anyone in Pennington, very much looking forward to it!

There’s some bands I haven’t been able to see or at least not get to see in the capacity that I’d like to, not gonna talk too much about the 3 LISD bands quite yet until I see them in person at DFW! Caught Hebron in early September, and really enjoyed their music and their consistent excellence in that area, and both FloMo and Marcus follow that same path, I wanna see in person and enjoy their shows before I say more! CTJ and TWHS are so so solid early on, where any kind of inconsistency should for sure be addressed through the month and a half of season to go and several rounds of adjudication and feedback they’ll be getting as well! CTJ I feel is a medal contender this year, and team Texas should have another amazing year after the last GN in 2019??Vista Ridge should be comfortably in Finals, while I unfortunately haven’t been able to see Reagan, I very much hope they’ll be in Medal/Eagle contention this year as well!

Every group here is capable of making some great sounds and give a great performance and it looks to be a really tough, exciting contest! I will say though, even with their early draw, Hebron has a comparatively tame block of bands around them compared to the next two, especially the last one?? it’s gonna be an amazing afternoon block of prelims, and then a crazy good finals in the evening??

Definitely find that placement quite bizarre too, and I know that they were hoping for more tonight, but all they can do is move forward to their next rehearsal and their next contest which is BOA DFW, a real bloodbath coming their way, I know they’ll be hungry to snatch a finals spot there?

Having not seen either show in person, just through what is passed around on YouTube and this live stream tonight, Vandegrift was really really GOOD, and I can see why they won prelims!! Butttt, CTJ I feel should win finals tonight, so entertaining, so challenging, and so so well performed! Vandegrift, Reagan, CTJ, FloMo and Hebron I feel have the most difficult/expressive musical programs, going back to a previous comment, and I think for me personally it was just unreal to hear what CTJ put out there tonight. Going back to another comment(!) probably as close to DCI as you could sound for marching band, and so early in the season for them too! I believe they win tonight??

Could be possible Hebron wins both Captions!(visual’s typically harder for them to win but it’s possible) FloMo’s really good with GE, and with BOA that either tightens up the margins significantly, or just tips it in a band’s favor?I also definitely root for Hebron to pull off a win, speaking personally?

Haven’t really gone searching for performances, but I did catch the Hebron/Martin game, and yeah, Hebron is phenomenal, as always! I wouldn’t cement them as uncontested at this moment really, ‘cause it’s always a tossup between the two and it’ll really depend what happens day of as to who wins here between Hebron and FloMo? and as for Martin(my Alma Mater WOOOO!!) they were only able to play their opener for halftime, there wasn’t enough time for their ballad sadly, but it’s great to see how quickly their show’s progressing, and a finalist spot in DFW would go a long ways to show how they’ll do in STL, I think they’re in finalist contention at both contests for sure, it’ll be likely that they’ll have their full show on the field by both contests as well, so it’ll be cleaning and improving the rest of the way for them!

Saw Hebron perform their show yesterday for their halftime performance and it was quite interesting!! Definitely a much darker sound than is expected from them, usually, they have a more brighter “hopeful” sounding show and program as a whole. They immediately begin with a huge impact that startled the home crowd and the people around me, they were shocked?? I wasn’t able to catch the name of their show, can’t recall if they announced it, and along with the darker sound, typically with Hebron you expect the MIGHTY Hebron Mello sound to be at the forefront, but right from the start you had to put a hand out in front of you, ‘cause the trombones brought out so much sound!! The whole band sounded wonderful as we all expect, and while what was performed wasn’t terribly difficult visually, they have 2 more months to build what they have already and add the rest of their show, it’ll be great to see more as the season goes on!

For me, might as well go to the very first show I watched. James Martin High School in 2013 presenting “Elegy for a Young American” honoring the 50th anniversary of President JFK’s death in 1963 right here in Dallas. As an 8th grader I saw this show my eventual high school was doing at junior high night, and it was, and has been a very enduring experience for me, and it definitely retains the qualities of marching shows that leave an impact on me: an engaging atmosphere, brought on by the voice work throughout, really encapsulating the feelings people had of JFK’s passing as if you were there in the aftermath. Excellent music selection, starting with the show’s titular work, Bartok’s String Quartet No.4, and Mackey’s Aurora Awakes. The music brings about how cinematic the show is as the show is all about going through the “5 stages of Grief” collectively felt because of this tragedy, and as you can imagine, there’s a wide contrast of emotions that the show takes you through from what you see and hear, and I was very fortunate for this to be the first show that I was able to hear and really sparked my enthusiasm for band as a whole coming into HS. Maybe y’all will feel the same after watching it☺️

My alma mater in Martin is going this year, very excited to see how they do! And I’m very confident every group’ll have a successful and exciting weekend at this contest!

Wooooooo, yes Team Texas!! All 6 bands in the top 9!!