LostChoirGuy

I missed the start of Hebron! Ahhh! At least I'll get to see them in finals. 😕

I've only seen the last 4 or 5 groups, but of those, I think Cy Fair is in the thick of the finals race and I think Sachse and Forney were right up with a lot of the other bubble groups, though I don't think they will have enough to make it in.

Oooh I loved that show from Sachse. That was some really cool music and I love the visual in the closer!

I know much has been said about why there is no semifinals in this contest, but I feel that we can no longer count on the judges to find the best 14 bands in a contest of this size when there are so many great groups right in the mix. On top of that, making the top 7 is so essential for potential medalists because of the top/bottom finals split. I really think they need to see all potential finalists closer together with a single judging panel.

Cy Fair has so many great visual moments. I love their uniforms and the switch between colors never gets old haha. Musically I also really loved their quieter moments. I did feel like the show had some unusual pacing, with several dead moments that seemed like nothing was happening, but it didn't affect how much I liked their show.

Everyone talking about how unbalanced the panels were really confused me to be honest. I do think Panel 2 has a couple more solid locks that will likely place in the top half of finals, but the finalist bubble in panel 1 is huge!

Oh no! I slept through my alarm and only just woke up. I missed LD Bell, Coppell, Seven Lakes, Cy Woods, Pearland, and so many other great bands. Looks like I made it just in time for Cy Fair

My opinion from day 1 (in tiers and not in any order because I can't decide who was better in a lot of these) Confident finalists: Vandegrift, Reagan Flower Mound, CTJ, Vista Ridge Round Rock, Cedar Ridge, Cedar Park Could be in finals: Rouse, Keller, Westlake, Bowie Hendrickson, Leander, Keller Central, Timber Creek

Keller always has the best trombone parts in their shows. That closer was awesome!

OMG I let my guard down and was not expecting that large finish by Magnolia. It startled me haha. Is Magnolia 5A for UIL?

Their first big hit is AWESOME but my question is if it actually counts, since it came before the announcement was finished? I mean the judges are likely affected by preshow stuff anyways, but it technically shouldn't go towards their score, right? edit: now I'm questioning if that is just a UIL thing... ?

Vandegrift has so many amazing visual GE moments (on top of being one of the best playing bands in the country). I don't understand how they get a band that size to always look so clean.

I ran to get food since there are very few breaks today and missed MacArthur, LASA, and Legacy EE- any comments on how they were? I thought Sandra Day O'Connor was very good! They had some tuning issues but in my opinion made up for it with some really great GE moments. There is a reason some of those songs are performed so often, they really make for great shows.

I thought Round Rock was excellent. I have them right up there with Cedar Ridge and Vista Ridge.

So far my top picks are: Vista Ridge Cedar Ridge Westlake Bowie Dripping Springs

Somehow I think my feed fell behind and I can't figure out how to catch it back up?

Dripping Springs was very clean and impressive. I don't think their GE matches those at the finalist level, but they are very close. I agree that we could see them sneak into state finals. JBA has had really great show designs for a few years now, but I think this was their best show from a performance perspective. They are really setting the standard for South Texas.

I agree! I loved their opener!

I'm here to watch! So excited!

I assure you, no slight was meant towards Cedar Ridge! As I said at the beginning of the post, I haven't seen most of these shows so I don't really expect my predictions to be very accurate. I will say that I don't see a scenario in which cedar ridge doesn't make finals- I just struggled to figure out where to put them. Based on previous years, I know that CR has a really beautiful ensemble sound that can stand out as unique among so many of the larger bands they will be competing against in this contest. I'd love to see them do really well here. The other group that I couldn't figure out what to do with was Leander. It seems absurd to me to place them in 23rd, but I couldn't really figure out who they would beat ahead of them based on what we have seen this year so far. I expect that they will have a much more polished performance here and do much better than I predicted.

UIL performance isn't depicted very well in hornranks rankings. Plus, I don't think people are saying Area D isn't stacked at the top, just that area B (and probably C) have a lot more bands that are competitive.

OK, we are less than a day away from the start of this contest and I am so excited! I haven't spent as much time actually watching videos this year as normal, so for most of these bands, this will be my first time seeing their show all season. There is a lot of talk about who will make finals (rightfully so) but I wanted to give a shoutout to so many other great bands that deserve recognition. I decided to create a list of my top 25 from each panel as well as a simulation for the top 11+11+8 if there had been a semifinals. I do not know enough about the lower classification bands to guess the hypothetical advancers based on class so I did not do that. If anyone knows how to create spoiler tags here, please let me know so I can make this wall of text appear nicer. Panel 1 Top 25 (in alphabetical order) Argyle Bowie College Park CT Johnson Cy Fair Cy Woods Del Rio Flower Mound Forney Foster Friendswood Glenn Hays Hendrickson Keller Keller Central Lake Travis Leander Marcus O'Connor Pearland Reagan Round Rock Sachse Timber Creek Panel 2 Top 25 (in alphabetical order) Alexander Brandeis Cedar Park Cedar Ridge Coppell Dawson Dripping Springs Hebron Highland Park JE Taylor Klein Oak LD Bell McNeil Oak Ridge Rock Hill Rouse Seven Lakes The Woodlands Vandegrift Vista Ridge Waxahachie Westlake Westwood Wylie Wylie East Semifinalists: Panel 1 Top 11 (in alphabetical order) Bowie CT Johnson Cy Fair Flower Mound Hendrickson Keller Marcus Pearland Reagan Round Rock Timber Creek Panel 2 Top 11 (in alphabetical order) Cedar Park Cedar Ridge Coppell Hebron LD Bell Rouse The Woodlands Vandegrift Vista Ridge Waxahachie Westlake Next 8 (in alphabetical order) Brandeis (Panel 2) Keller Central (Panel 1) Lake Travis (Panel 1) Leander (Panel 1) Rock Hill (Panel 2) Westwood (Panel 2) Wylie (Panel 2) Wylie East (Panel 2) Finalists: Panel 1 Top 5 (in alphabetical order) CT Johnson Flower Mound Marcus Reagan Round Rock Panel 2 Top 5 (in alphabetical order) Cedar Park Coppell Hebron Vista Ridge Vandegrift Next 4 (in alphabetical order) Cedar Ridge (Panel 2) Cy Fair (Panel 1) Keller (Panel 1) The Woodlands (Panel 2) Top 40 (in order) 1. Hebron (Panel 2) 2. Vandegrift (Panel 2) 3. Flower Mound (Panel 1) 4. Vista Ridge (Panel 2) 5. Cedar Park (Panel 2) 6. CT Johnson (Panel 1) 7. Reagan (Panel 1) 8. Coppell (Panel 2) 9. Marcus (Panel 1) 10. Cedar Ridge (Panel 2) 11. The Woodlands (Panel 2) 12. Round Rock (Panel 1) 13. Cy Fair (Panel 1) 14. Keller (Panel 1) 15. Rouse (Panel 2) 16. Westlake (Panel 2) 17. Pearland (Panel 1) 18. LD Bell (Panel 2) 19. Timber Creek (Panel 1) 20. Waxahachie (Panel 2) 21. Bowie (Panel 1) 22. Hendrickson (Panel 1) 23. Leander (Panel 1) 24. Wylie East (Panel 2) 25. Westwood (Panel 2) 26. Wylie (Panel 2) 27. Lake Travis (Panel 1) 28. Rock Hill (Panel 2) 29. Keller Central (Panel 1) 30. Brandeis (Panel 2) 31. Forney (Panel 1) 32. Seven Lakes (Panel 2) 33. Sachse (Panel 1) 34. Friendswood (Panel 1) 35. Klein Oak (Panel 2) 36. Cy Woods (Panel 1) 37. Foster (Panel 1) 38. Dripping Springs (Panel 2) 39. Oak Ridge (Panel 2) 40. Alexander (Panel 2) 41. Dawson (Panel 2) 42. College Park (Panel 1) 43. JE Taylor (Panel 2) 44. Argyle (Panel 1) 45. Highland Park (Panel 2) 46. O'Connor (Panel 1) 47. McNeil (Panel 2) 48. Hays (Panel 1) 49. Azle (Panel 2) 50. Churchill (Panel 2) Please forgive me for the length of this post!

Where do I find said video?

Honestly, given their early performance time and warming up in the rain on top of this, I think it's impressive they were still sitting as a projected state qualifier after prelims.

I went on a limb and had Central as my 6th place finisher in the predictions I submitted here. We will see if they can deliver in finals, should they be there. Go Keller ISD!