packwick

this is also weeeeirdly full circle for me, bc i got into a huge amount of trouble for criticizing our show design on xanga back in the day. i thought i was being helpful but Brett was fuuurious lol. i guess i was pretty precocious tho and was proven correct when they changed designers later on and shot right up to the top. really i was connecting the dots, like why are our perf scores near the top but our GE ones not and why do i feel like it's being blamed on us kids not working hard enough lol. i think they knew, they just didn't want to hear it from a 16 year old or whatever lol.

awww this is waaay too sweet. it's all just the price of doing MotherBoy band and guard events decades after u have graduated lololol it's funny bc i got that from my sister the other day, like why u still do dis. and it's like, well it's something mom and i do to hang out together, bc shes still really into it and getting older, and is it really any less weird than being into pro sports teams you literally have nothing to do with? i don't think so hahahaha.

thaaaanks for defending me guys hahahaha. i wasn't sure anyone would wander over from TikTok. my old school's guard placed 4th in SW btw lol.

their was show amazing, fun + weirdly affecting at the end despite the funny bizarreness of it. "the air was full of monsters," now there's some classic poetry.

dont get me wrong, they do looots of things unusually well. they preeetty consistently choose interesting and high quality music, unfortunately most guard ppl don't have good taste in music and consequently set their shows up for mediocrity. they don't usually spell things out for the audience, allowing for deeper interpretations. they know to show rather than tell whiiich unfortunately is like a 99th+%ile skill in the guard world. they often do themes u haven't quite seen before. im piiicky picky picky bc they're knocking at the door, they're right there, just liiittle bitty things are holding them back, well little bitty besides the rehearsal restrictions. ive felt the same way about the marching program previous years and prob still will but ofc it's all easier said than done + i have a kinda editorial distance from the work they don't have. also think they miiight wanna start a guard #3 + reduce the size of the other two a little, play the game and rely more on their strongest girls. buuut that would prob require adding another full time guard director job. w/ 70 kids or whatever, hundreds w/ McC, u need it.

just watched arcadia for the first time. this guard is going to be a huge pain in the a**, competitively speaking lol, for the other top guards in a year or two. looks like a Gaines show.

i just see Keyboard Cat banging away as i listen to it. somebody should film a symphony of keyboard cats to Egg Modern.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=L1zaQenTbck&pp=ygUNSmFtZXMgem9vIGVnZw%3D%3D lololol. how did they find this, it only has a thousand views. love the comment "yikes." lolol

lol ok finally somebody commented on YT what the music in twhs' is. i asked my percussionist brother-in-law what it was, he had no idea, he shazam-ed the first and middle parts of their semis perf for me yesterday and it got it wrong lol, like it pulled up some generic electronic music, so we still had no idea. music is apparently by composer named Jameszoo, who did this oddity lol. i do really like it tho. it's fun and different. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2stXTHNtB-g&pp=ygUISmFtZXN6b28%3D

twhs in their favorite place, in 4th behind Avon and Carmel lol. some things never change. nothing toooo surprising. Avon nailed it, like completely. i agree that the Avon floor cam painted a preetty rosy picture of their execution and grace/fluidity/connections b/w phrases + personality. i don't think twhs quiiite matched them on those points tho the upstairs picture was better than i would have guessed at season's start. im sure twhs is upset about the medal thing but let's put things into perspective. in semis u beat the guard that has won the past 3 times in a row, in finals u were only 0.1 point behind them, all this despite rehearsing less than half the time they do on at least some weeks + having more moving parts in your show that im sure were hard to clean. u improved your score by several points over last year and got the highest score of any SW guard from TX ever in any round at Dayton. + it seems like most of your soloists/small ensemble members were underclassmen. this level of consistency is totally completely unheard of in the state of tx w/ the rehearsal time handicap. twhs is the model for other guards in tx to emulate, esp w/ their feeder program. it's not possible to do it any other way. i can't wait to see what they bring back in two years when they're fully saturated w/ those steroidal McCullough girls lol. theyll win gold as long as their designers and choreographers figure it out. the team has a distinct voice it just needs a little polishing.

me: the fun shows almost never win!!! wgi: *handing out all the gold medals to fun shows*

anybody know if Wes Cartwright had any involvement in Dobyns-Bennett's winter guard show like he does w/ marching band? coooudnt quite shake the feeling i was watching one of his kooky but super effective theatrical productions while watching it. totally loved it btw. a show in my wheelhouse.

happy for twhs, didn't catch the others but i was thinking "if they don't make top 3 after that performance it isn't happening" bc it was their best yet probably. actually they've been very consistent since state. excellence seems on par w/ vocab. hope they keep it up. semis result is prob how i would have them in terms of gaps going into contest, would have switched Tarpon and Carmel. Carmel = super polished and great, consistently clear and compelling staging but not as engaging emotionally for me as Tarpon.

i was curious about the SW scores bc that 95.5 seemed really high compared to what im used to seeing after prelims, uuusually like 92-94. tuuurns out that's the highest sw prelims score since at least 2010. even higher than when Avon set the SW record in 2019. oooo lawd!

ok DDD looks mostly Independent E based on YT vids.

DCs Different Drummers did even a tiny bit worse. didn't see that one. only one point separating the top 3 in IW. ooooo, exciiiting, see that's how SW should be too but w/ twhs replacing Avon of course lolol. have my doubts thatll happen tho. it's Avon, they haven't missed the top 3 since like 2015.

Independent E(lderly) Class. i couldn't really tell the ages of the northwest performers on high cam.

oh fusion is so obviously a blast/bluecoats team production. didn't even need to look that up, tho i did just in case so i wouldn't look like a complete dumba** lol. Jim Moore choreo and Jon Vanderkolff soundtrack/staging. fun fun fun but also pretty interesting. probably the next new guard to win a gold medal. Northwest wassss.... yeaaaah...

almost surprised they came out on top. the fun shows almost never win!!! *sobs into a Coppell letter jacket* SA might be pullin a Kennesaw Mtn here and winning A and Open one right after the other.

oh CP also much lower than state, maybe they had a rough run or the judges were just bored by it or something. looots of water shows, but i found it more subtle and sophisticated than usual. i have lots of patience tho. if i can sit through Bela Tarr's Satantango i can sit through anything. Friendswood did verrrry well despite being bumped at last minute. noice!

oooo, Carmel way out ahead. twhs in 4th. prob not what they wanted but not that bad considering their crappy performance time. just a point away from 2nd.

wgi does a reverse placement order for semis and finals in the world classes which def helps keep guards in the same placement neighborhood as prelims. don't typically see changes thaaaat drastic. workin'. managed to step out to record twhs prelims but didn't watch any others. great performance, just a couple of half catches and drops near the end, nothing very exposed tho. flags have stepped it up. def more uniform today than last week.

top ranked open + last year's A champion Somerset Academy for your viewing pleasure https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rfIsFfbGxZE ummmm, an Orville Peck show? yaaass please! ugh finally some good taste in music. one of the small number of country artists i appreciate, among the strongest voices in pop music too. it's like him and Shakey Graves, who's barely country anymore, and a few other bluegrass ones like Trampled By Turtles and then thats it. all the other mainstream country artists can go make out w/ their pickup trucks or whatever.

hmmm i am liking it more now that it's cleaner and i can see it from an elevated perspective. kinda strange high-art sci fi. still think they'll be anywhere 2nd to 4th goin into dayton. pleasantly surprised if higher, unpleasantly if lower lol.

lmao. ok i inadvertently answered my question. poster of that previous vid also has a Westlake vid but much closer up. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=IkSDiY8-FS8