BandFan59

Enjoyed Leander's show a lot! Their sounds are very strong and they have excellent soloists. The tuba solo to finish off the second movement was really cute. The show definitely seems to be on a bit of a smaller scale than some of their past shows (Radioactive and Fourth Dimension come to mind), but they're still performing it very well.

I have a feeling they underestimated how many people would be watching the streams and weren't prepared for the traffic on their website. Definitely hope they'll be prepared for the traffic flow for the rest of the season, especially for the super regional

Here's the link to the Austin stream on YT. If it's not loading for you try refreshing a few times.

Missed James Bowie but it's really nice that they're streaming the regional finals for free with all the issues they're having! I hope they can do some type of refund for the people that bought the finals package and couldn't get on.

For anyone that wants to watch finals and can't get through the Box5 website, their YouTube channel is livestreaming this regional for free.

On Box5's YouTube channel, they have a free livestream up for the North Houston and Clarksville regionals. They may be trying to get one going for Austin with the website issues they're having.

Yeah I can't even purchase the finals package for the event, the website is crashing.

Rouse getting top half in prelims is so impressive. I think Vandegrift and CTJ going one after another will help the judges decide between them since I have a feeling they're very close and the champion of the regional will be between one of the two.

Final Results 1. Louis D. Brandeis H.S., TX 75.10 2. Weiss H.S., TX 74.85 3. Del Rio H.S., TX 73.60 4. John B. Alexander 73.525 5. Roma H.S., TX 70.80 6. Georgetown H.S., TX 70.15 7. United H.S., TX 70.05 8. Pioneer H.S., TX 69.050 9. Grapevine H.S., TX 68.00 10. Harlingen H.S., TX 64.95 11. Hidalgo H.S., TX 64.625 12. Harlingen South H.S., TX 64.075 Outstanding Music Performance: Louis D. Brandeis H.S., TX Outstanding Visual Performance: Weiss H.S., TX Outstanding General Effect: Louis D. Brandeis H.S., TX

BOX5 Media is the new partner with BOA for streaming contests this season. From what I've heard from other users, BOX5 is more consistent than FloMarching with their streams, so there may be less freezing and better audio quality now. Also, unlike FloMarching where you had to buy their FloSports service for an entire year to watch events, you can choose to buy individual events to watch. I think it's $25 for prelims and finals and $15 if you only want one or the other.

I really don't want to be so blunt, but it seems now you are just looking for reasons to be annoyed at people here. Saying a band needs help without any further elaboration might seem harmless, but I know from experience that students read a lot of what is said on here and take it to heart. To see someone say something like that in comparison to other bands without any positive feedback or advice can be crushing to them when they work really hard for hours every week on their shows. All the posters are saying here is to just be a little more tactful and mindful of how they offer critiques knowing who browses this forum. As for your prior statement that your opinions don't seem to be popular here, I'll offer my own opinion that you seem to have a sense of superiority that comes across in your posts as a little demeaning to other posters. Maybe consider how you talk to other people on here before criticizing how others talk on here. It's just high school marching band at the end of the day.

I am also leaning towards a CTJ win, with Vandegrift maybe snatching the music caption. With the level that they are currently performing at combined with the difficulty of their show, I don't see anyone catching CTJ at this event.

Flower Mound will obviously win this. That aside, there are some great 5A schools here, so this will be a good preview for the 5A state contest with bands like Lebanon Trail, Centennial, Wylie East, Lone Star, etc.

Just saw a video of CTJ, and I am stunned. They have a complete show on the field and it's amazing how polished it seems already for this point of the season. The drill is easily the hardest of any group I've seen so far, and probably will be the hardest of any band in the state. They already sound fantastic, and it's still over a week until BOA Austin. I think they're edging on having another season similar to 2017's Forest Through the Trees, which is one of my favorite shows of all time.

I'm gonna throw my name in the hat and say my inbox is also open...

No Flower Mound, but still looks like a strong lineup of bands. Disappointed that Coppell dropped, they would've definitely made finals here.

Saw the Woodlands video online. Personally it's not my favorite, I prefer some of their older shows, but maybe this one will grow on me. However the musical execution is at a very high level and I do enjoy the tenor sax solo a lot. Have to agree that they do seem to do a lot of park and play at the moment, but they also have a good amount of their show already on the field, so I think they'll have plenty of time to polish and maybe change things around.

I've seen videos of Leander, Vandegrift, Vista Ridge, and Cedar Park now. IMO Vandegrift is the best of the four right now, but I really like Leander's music book and think they have a lot of room to grow. Vista Ridge's show definitely seems like it's designed to peak late season, so it doesn't seem quite as polished as some of the others. Cedar Park looks larger than they have been in the past, but they sounded a little rough in the video that I watched of them, so I'm hoping they'll be cleaner by Austin. I've seen only a short clip of Cedar Ridge, and while they sound good, they're a lot smaller than I remember them being, so I hope the pandemic didn't affect them too harshly in terms of enrollment. Haven't seen a video of CTJ yet, but I've heard only good things about them.

I'm curious to see how Coppell will do this season after having a decent amount of staff changes. Kim Shuttlesworth is leading the program now after the head director got promoted to the fine arts coordinator of the district and the associate director left for Tarpon Springs. It'll be interesting to see if she can reproduce similar levels of success that she had at James Bowie now that she's back at a 6A school. Ironically enough, the new associate director came from Bowie as well.

A shame Tarpon Springs seemed to have dropped out since they haven't been back at Grand Nats since 2018, but this still looks like it'll be one of the strongest pools of bands in years. All seven Texas bands are strong contenders for finals, and with Broken Arrow and Blue Springs back this year along with the usual Midwestern bands this is going to be seriously competitive.

Saw a video of Vandegrift this year at their first football game and they sound great, as usual. I’m a big fan of the music selections this year so far. Pretty dirty visually, but that’s to be expected at this point of the year. Wouldn’t be surprised to see them have another season like 2019.

Vandegrift did it!!! Their first trip ever and they won it all!!! A HUGE congratulations to all the finalist bands! And a shout out to the Texas squadron that made up 6 of the top 9 bands in finals! What an amazing season this has been!

Need to watch the multi-cam. I had the same mistake playing high cam and was wondering why it was just pitch black with no noise.

My own personal predictions now that all the finalists have gone: 1. Vandegrift 2. Avon 3. Hebron 4. Leander 5. Claudia Taylor Johnson 6. Carmel 7. The Woodlands 8. William Mason 9. Homestead 10. Round Rock 11. Union 12. Ayala Music - Hebron Visual - Avon/Vandegrift GE - Vandegrift The top 6 are going to be incredibly tight score-wise in my opinion as well.

Vandegrift finishing off the Texas squadron with an AMAZING performance!!! Would love to see them take the Eagle in their first ever trip to Grand Nats!