packwick

oof. Bloo steamrolled over the comp tonight at Nightbeat. i guess they've been doin' that most of the season, but tonight they won all 11 judges of a double panel over both devils and crown. 😬😬😬 Bostonnnn, you're the only hope! alas, rly don't see them winning either... design not at the same level. bloo would have to have a reeeally lousy run in finals. but hey, maybe. get out your voodoo dolls!!

juuust remembered that Dawson is also performing at Midwest in December. doubling up on the convention performances this upcoming school year!! well-deserved. fantastic concert programs for several years now. attendees in Chicago are very fortunate to get to hear them.

does that mean first place tie broken b/w Coppell and Dawson?? not surprising, both super strong as usual. college park was 2nd in the other room according to their fb page. also not surprising, thought they sounded like a top 5er again, we'll see. shadow creek 5th then. leaving flomo, ctj, and marcus. guessing flomo in 1st but maybe not.

ugh, and we were so close to having Glory of the Yankee Navy be 50% of the marches in finals!! wish they had let in Haltom as an 11th band. congrats to all. some interesting shifts b/w area and state, but when doesn't that happen? very subjective, esp having to consider difficulty of the rep versus cleanliness. curious who was in each room for semis.

oooh, BOA, gurl, USBands is coming 4 u!! lol i like that they have separate judges for perc and color guard, tho not sure they're actually included in the overall score. also looks like they sometimes do double panels. (ya see that, BOA??) im still adamant that the best system would be the 40-30-30 one used by DCI, just replace "brass" with "winds." also double the effect panels for major events.

Bloooo finally gettin that 1+ point gap they deserve. also maybe the highest southwestern regional score ever. over a 93??? not sure that's ever happened before, not when it has been held at this point in the season anyway. when i saw their show at the premiere, i thought gold with prob around a 98.5. this score makes u think that they maaaybe will eke out a 99. gonna need to up their guard game for that tho. honestly i think it's just as simple as adding more of those big, full ensemble weapon trick tosses that read well from upstairs. seems to be what's driving the content scores, to my eyes anyway. Boston has like their entire 20+ weapon line rolling under 7s and mostly nailing it. by the way, prob the best guard ive ever seen in DCI. i do like the clarity of Bloo's technique, tho. they seem to linger after their tosses, showing off their pristine hand placements and body carriage. it's very clear. Devs still clinging on to 2nd but i think Boston should overtake them soon. much more coherent show. finally the VA judge had some balls. thank you, Keith!

didn't watch anything tonight but results look spot-on based on what we've seen coming into the contest. bloo wins 6 of 8 judges, all but guard and perc. would have predicted Bloo in first by nearly a full point and Devs and Boston fighting for 2nd. phantom clearly ahead of mandarins was another obvious one, for many weeks now. actually this season has been verrrry very useful for sussing out ppl who actually sort of understand how this activity is judged and those who blindly predict blue devils in first, either bc they're homers or bc they've given up all hope and think the contests are rigged LOL.

maybe, but that score, like the one given to Bloo the previous night, is buoyed by verrry very generous numbers from Ken Turner. ill have to look again but think he gave crown a 90 in music analysis. on July 8th. wondering if he's retiring or something and going out with a bang LOL. was once a chief judge. most judges are keeping the scores quite close right now, not unusual for this point in the season. they're keenly aware of how everyone else is being scored in their particular caption(s) across the country. still think Bloo should be good for a championship, feeling even more strongly about that after seeing the much higher angle. brilliant design. but i doubt that the first matchup with Devs will have them ahead by over a point. think they'll need better scores across the board for that, not just in effect and visual analysis.

scv still has that suuuper strong and aggressive brass sound, which is pretty cool considering they didn't field a corps last yr. i mean overall they're rock solid given the circumstances. visual seems to straddle an outdated and contemporary style, which might be why it's not super duper effective rn, along w/ the fact that it's quite dirty. like, parts of it look like they're going for the contemporary stagey style, but then the field doesn't look like a stage at all bc there's no scenic design, so it becomes unbalanced and uninteresting. the parts that are more like what Gaines does for Carmel w/ the traditional drill are a little more effective although more familiar and old-fashioned. guard seems kind of not there at times too. like the ending of that jazz section in the opener is sooo voluminous musically but the guard is just barely there, dancing around. needs more visual volume, should be a flag moment. Mandarins are fun, really loud, i recall that from last yr too when i saw them live. just like a huuuge wall of sound. some really cool vis moments again, seems like they're figuring out how to write effective shows pretty consistently. i think my favorite vis part is the "unwinding uterus" in the opener LOL. my best description of it. flags around it could use some work.

somebody did a live stream of DCI west w/ their phone. filmed in portrait. also sounds like he's eating candy during the devs, lots of crinkling sounds. ugh. lol. go do some ASMR, fella. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zpmkU1_L4hU&pp=ygUQYmx1ZSBkZXZpbHMgMjAyNA%3D%3D Devs make lots of grand exclamations w/ amazingly rich chordal moments in the brass that sound championship quality, but still not really fitting together, + only fitfully compelling visually. the pokemon battle music is still a major wtf for me in this thematic context, tho it may not be as bad if you're too old to recognize it lol. "It's not very effective..." iykyk. prob just the Devs' go at appealing to younger viewers. gotta link it all together somehow to make it magical from beginning to end. i think their ens music perf is considerably stronger than the vis rn. devs are typically visual wizards. right near the start you see timing issues in the guard and form control issues in the brass, and they seem unusually persistent. mostly seems fixable tho.

bloo holding a little lead over devils at different contests today. 81.9 to 81.3. isn't the silly horse race part of DCI scores fun? around this time last yr is when Devs opened up the huge 1.5+ gap that they maintained throughout the season. hasn't happened yet, maybe good news for the others. unless it's just slightly delayed this yr. lol lookin at the recap, actually a chance that the 'true' gap b/w bloo and devils rn is bigger than 0.6. noticed right away that 6 of 8 judges had BD scoring lower than they scored tonight, while 6 of 8 had bloo scoring higher. devs were a bit buoyed by 2 judges, including GE1, which gets doubled at major events. bloo's 2 weak judges were brass and individual vis, again.

thaaanks! even if u might have meant it sarcastically LOL

judges nailed the placements tonite. full agreement. ofc there were only 4 corps, so... happy to see Boston improve. ofc it's the beginning of the season and scores were close, so they might not hold onto it. think Bloo should have been closer to a full point ahead, mostly through effect, notwithstanding the sloppy trumpet soloists, weird audio balancing, and dirt in the last 2 mvmnts. judges were a little conservative w/ the gaps in GE. a minor quibble. we'll see what the double panels think. that's when s*** gets real. LOL doesn't look like there's gonna be another one of these matchups for a couple weeks. bummer.

there was a high cam of Bloo around the day of the event. buuut got removed fast. lame! only had like 300 views. can't find it anymore. might be delulu as the kids says, but think upstairs vis will be in Bloo's favor this season. at least compositionally it was fab.

the results from later today could be informative. think bluecoats have content on lock among the big 3, esp visually. traditionally the biggest things holding them back have been execution and creating those truly huge moments musically, partially bc their favored style of music is so minimalist and fragmented. thiiink they're doing a better job on both fronts early season this yr. seem more confident. but i could still see Crown and BAC score wins in performance captions and overall energy/excitement. will be nice to see them all in the same venue, once the vids leak on YouTube lol.

im a big devils fan, have accurately predicted their wins and the size of the scoring margins (prior to first meetup scores being rendered) for many years now, buuuut the fact that Scott needs to explain these shows in detail via YT is NOT a good thing. show, don't tell. i don't come away from the videos thinking, oh how brilliant! i come away thinking, wow, this is a muddy melange of half-baked ideas. doesn't always matter tho bc the devils' best shows have such great aesthetic and emotional peaks (w/ amazing performance qualities), so the confused theming doesn't always get in the way. dunno. sometimes it feels a lil tiny bit like the metaphor in the Texas Sharpshooter logical fallacy, where the guy paints a target around a bunch of random shots and cries, bullseye!

devs are excellent. buuuuut i don't think this show is as strong as the past 2 yrs. then again i also don't really remember what those ones looked like in June lol. guard is killing it for sure, tho lots of samey toss-turn-catch phrases. i like the easy-going, 80s movie soundtrack feel of the ballad but it doesn't quite reach the peaks of their last two ballads. def would give effect to the bluecoats right now. a more coherent, seamless product for now. better mise-en-scene as well, more balanced and less cluttered looking.

yep yep, can confirm, bloo has kicked it up a notch this year. first full goosebumps of the season w/ that build into the ballad. it's a visual feast too. richly layered and appealingly sculpted, w/o losing control. so much going on at once but very few lapses in balance, logic, and clarity, pretty much only during the more chaotic parts, which is intentional. grips you right away and doesn't let up. beginning, middle, and end all have wow moments, couched in that strange Bloo ether. it's not the most earth shatteringly creative thing but there's more than enough wit. feels like the culmination of lessons learned from Tilt and Kinetic Noise + some woodlands 2016 thrown in there w/ the platforms. easy top 2 this year, maybe 1st.

yeah, ppl in my orbit are gushing about it. prob a good thing. we'll see, obviously SOMETHING needs to really awaken me this season LOL.

oh do Bluecoats have some sort of premiere right now? ive been most excited to see them. gut feeling coming into the season was they might pull off the win. Crown sounded great, but not feeling the show at all. id have BAC over them, bigger and more memorable moments for sure. more creative as well. ngl, i turned off both SCV and Mandarins halfway through, just didn't move me or keep my interest. buuuut still need to watch a proper high cam of lots of em.

wasn't digging most of them tbh, w/ the caveat that i watched it on multi for free on YT. saw Phantom and BAC on high. we'll see how they all look and sound later in the season. didnt care for a lot of the music. "too much" sums it up for me. too many notes for the sake of notes. too many pieces crammed into the production, for the sake of getting that checkmark next to "variety" on the sheets. which leads to little coherence and few through lines in the music. but then this is all stuff that has been going on for yeeears now. imo it feels very catered to teenagers (now why would that be? lol) who often think that the height of musical excellence is playing a lot of quick, repetitive, scalar, sixteenth-note figures. don't get me wrong, there are lotsa old farts wetting themselves over those moments too, the ones who cry "content!!!!" like some Greek ululation as they storm into battle. buuut what about musical expression? the Bostonian (but actually probably mostly Texan) babies over at BAC were on a different level. great playing, some great music to cling onto, nice visuals, drill kinda BOAish in its more direct simplicity, maybe a little hard to read at times w/ the costuming, kinda like when a guard fades into the field, but this time it's the winds. maaaybe that's an intentional glitch lol. guard is stunningly good, like watching pride of cincinnati but on the field, they're even dressed similarly to the adios show. better blending of the equipment w/ mvmnt than usual. lovely ballad, actually didn't care for it when i first heard it, compared it negatively to FloMo's, seemed excessivelyyy.... melismatic? lol, like Mariah-ish. but i like it now. not sure overall the show is strong enough to win but we'll see what the two Blues and Crown bring. Phantom opened and ended faaabulously w/ the Beethoven. stuff in the middle, a little less fabulous. stuff just kinda dragged. trapped in your own mind, something like that, for the theme. actually one of my biggest fears is that the gulf in quality b/w the tippity top and the rest is widening. esp after watching cavies. (nice effort, but they seemed reeeally out of their depth. also prob the most confused Saucedo arrangement ive ever heard. like, what happened?!! lol) w/ all the financial troubles + how expensive it is to participate, the products really should be higher quality. which would lead to better recruiting methinks. kinda worrisome but this is also based on entirely subjective judgements lots will disagree with.

hope the prelims/semis judges like Glory of the Yankee Navy 'cause they're gonna hear it 6 times. well actually maybe not, bc the prelims are split up now. cool to see tw make it to state for the first time in over 20 years. last time was my era, think we got 10th lol, and the only reason we made it to state was bc Westfield had won the previous time and freed up one of the 2 spots. marching/concert quality split, kinda like LD Bell in the early naughts. gotta develop that concert band musicianship!!

cedar park, coppell, flomo, hebron, keller, leander, marcus, pearland, reagan, round rock, rouse, twhs, vandy, and vista. that's actually 14 right there, mostly the legacy ones besides rouse who had an amazing 2023. cedar ridge, ctj, cy-fair, bowie, bell, southlake carroll, waxahachie, and westlake. ld bell rocked it last yr, will see if they're consistent. westlake and ctj also made finals. not sure which ones have had director changes. may create some opportunities.

avon, bridgeland, broken arrow, brownsburg, carmel, cedar park, dobyns bennett, fishers, leander, tarpon springs, william mason... aaaaand american fork/mustang/o'fallon/prosper/union. not really up to date on the strongest bubbles tbh. would love to see friendswood in the mix. brownsburg and fishers maybe more at risk than i think, musically were pretty rough last yr (watching nats live), but then they still made finals, so... think design and vis will keep them there.

if i do any regionals this'll prob be the only one i attend. no woodlands (maybe a conflict or not wanting to drive an hour and a half across the city), but it's closer to me and more stacked overall than north Houston.