packwick

there are so many bands where it's like i don't know if they'll make finals here but i wish were going to Nationals bc they'd easily make finals there. hahaha.

WOW Cypress Woods. some suuuuper impressive playing. ballad = goosebumps. oh hi there amazing flute and oboe soloists. i love it when bands play a style of music that's not what we usually hear on the field. imagination! i love it. avail yourselves of it, designers.

Pearland = the next step in even more Cartwright domination.

Flower Mound was absolutely stellar. suuuuch projection of style right away when they come out of the box, fun PCEP 01 reference btw. suuuper clear performance. nobody does that folding full band symmetric drill as well. hahaha. middle a little slow, but they close out STRONG. i'd maybe have them hanging w/ Vandy. then the NEISD bands. then Vista/Cedar Ridge. then line up the other contenders and throw some darts, but aim the first one at Westlake. hahaha. it's just soooo competitive. edit: i forgot Cedar Park. put them in the Ridge cluster. hahaha.

def the most contemporary and DCI-ish show of the day from CTJ, along w/ Vista. just a huge bucket of freewheeling fun. suuuper duper challenging show. mad props for tackling this beast. i did notice a lot of out of step kids right away and it was persistent, they were also, like, nearly running tho, so it'll interesting to see how the judges balance the demand vs execution.

like Vandy, Reagan dominates the full space of the field. some reaaaally awesome stuff here. i'll echo sentiments about pacing issues. music is kinda fitful. not quiiiite as clean as i was expecting, still great. best auxiliary so far, all like 100 of them hahahaha.

super happy for how much Leander has improved. just night and day difference. i really enjoyed Keller Central also. guard is one of the best today. had to look up their WGI results from this past season. 3rd at the first Dallas Regional, 4th at the power regional in A class. yep, can see that.

yep, Vandy slayed. they're the best so far by quite a bit imo.

i'm officially a limp skeleton clinging to a fence. sometimes it's just fun to get blasted like that.

great energy from Hendrickson. agreed. i see Cedar Park setting up and i'm Sarah Connor right now banging on the fence yelling at the children on the playground to take shelter before the atomic bomb goes off.

all these bands are so good. i reeeeally don't envy the judges. so many at a similar level.

RR was great, soooo much better than recent years. love how they played w/ the music. love a big booming low brass, tho it sometimes sounds a little unbalanced and wall of sound-ish, i.e. lacking finesse. really enjoyed the visual program even though it was quite dirty in parts. last flag statement was a little unfortunate. definitely still in finals contention tho.

yes, he and Raiford do the visual program for Vista now. i think the judges will proooobably lean into Cedar Ridge's performance clarity over Vista, but i'd love to be wrong. content scores should be huge.

watchin' on hi cam. Cedar Ridge solid performance, a little bit o visual dirt here and there, but pretty locked in musically. still feel like the design is a bit simple, but that's prob just my tastes. Vista Ridge, super layered production, cool music, overall not as clean as i'd hoped. i also felt like the energy level dropped every time they weren't playing a long chord. given the challenges it makes sense. Westlake, that's gotta be some of the best clarinet playing ever on the field. great music. super enjoyable. love the voiceover, is that the guy from the Cadets? not super clean visually, but some cool stuff in there. finals worthy. actually i probably like Westlake's music more than both of the Ridges, which surprises me. more character.

omg. this is amazing. hahahaha. i wasn't expecting anyone to take it seriously, but i was also secretly hoping that they did. hahaha. armadillo, roadrunner, whatever. i'd like to think it'll help gin up some out of state interest in BOA SA, maybe i'm delusional.

lol, but the mental image of looking up at the press box and seeing a bunch of hoary old judges looking through binoculars like Rear Window creepers is actually amusing. also CR's show simply isn't satanic enough. missed opportunity to have the gargoyles make a pentagram and sacrifice a goat in the middle of the field.

i'm catching up on area vids. great work, kiddos! first of all, ummm, COPPELL! holy cow! huge, rich sounds. loving the super groovy recap of Beethoven at the end. so rhythmically challenging. guard is large and in charge. is that opening flute from Atonement? i heard Atonement mentioned + the typewriter sounds and got super excited. brilliant novel, brilliant film. music a little muddy after opener, but sooo cool. still love FM's concept more than probably any other this year. super duper meta. super duper band. capes are tasteful and don't overwhelm the visual upstairs *cough*Broken Arrow*cough*. the skeleton of the design not my favorite from them, by that i mean just the pure drill and music, but it's still super impressive. some big big moments and big big sounds. some tuning issues here and there also, wondering how cold it was. twhs i couldn't be more proud of. super improvement. i've been around a long time now and know that a lot of bands don't weather major staff changes very well. so thank u, new directors, for stepping into the pressure cooker and managing it well, and to the kids who stuck w/ the program and kept it going strong. i'm so happy for them. they could honestly get 14th place here and i'd be thrilled. Vista Ridge. this show is such a fascination. i've professed my love for it a lot already. aggressive, intelligent, strange, always engaging. BLAZINGLY difficult, this is what u get when u don't water down a Vanderkolff drill program. performance nooot quite there imo, maybe in another week, and the guard is too small for the band, but it excites me so much i don't really care. honestly not the fairest comparison b/w vista's guard and vandy's dance team. like, honestly, i'm not going to tell as much upstairs if u lose your balance on a chaines turn, but i'm sure as f*** gonna notice if flags are going up and down at different times and rifles are dropped. waaay more exposed, waaay bigger risk. a little surprised Vandy didn't come out on top at area. maybe only a little weaker than usual, usual being like top 3 SA. i will say this, the "experimental marching" was a liiittle oversold. hahaha. it's the same Vandy visual, but w/ glow sticks. hahaha. now the music is different. more contemporary. that change is good. is the grid some sort of Matrix thing? what i love most about Cedar Ridge is i guess the clarity. i never don't know what they're going for. i really like the depth to the set, the shadowing. the character moments. the percussion. show makes perfect sense. pretty strong musically at area this past weekend. visual is simple and pretty clean. maybe i'm not connecting w/ it as much as the others bc it's a little too simple for my tastes. but they can surely execute. will look for others later. great great job everyone. can't wait for those fancy schmancy ~*inDOoR~* performances.

judging panel for 6a is very DCI/BOA/WGI. not used to seeing so few retired TX directors on the list. hahaha.

Veeeesta da Beaaaasta! cautiously optimistic. this happened last yr tho and they still got clobbered by Vandy at both SA contests, BOA and UIL.

darn. less spicy results at Indy Super than expected. was hoping WM or BS would crash the top 2. Avon and Carmel on top by over a point, thin margin b/w 2 despite near caption sweep by Avon. Avon becomes frontrunner at Nats w/ Carmel nipping at heels.

someone needs to post WM onto YT. sounds like this is gonna be a much spicier finals than the Carmel domination i was expecting.

hooope you're right. they've finally got their closer on the field. my main concern is whether they have enough time to polish everything after taking longer to field the full show. fingers crossed. didn't care for the show 1st time i saw it either. grown on me. but BOA judges unlike DCI don't typically get the liberty to have a show grow on them. more like one and done. and SA is going to be fiiilled w/ amazing sounding bands. anywho, back to Nats bands...

gotta wonder where Blue Springs fits in overall in prelims...

oh wow, Avon grabs effect. maybe via music effect? VGE should be Carmel for sure. Mason is one i haven't seen. diff panel i think than AC, so hard to compare, of course that doesn't stop BOA from stupidly combining the results from 2 panels and awarding class awards.

lol i saw an earlier YT vid, but really when do they not have a crap ton of stuff on the field. very urban, like their guard show this year. equal parts cool and cringe.