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packwick

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Everything posted by packwick

  1. packwick
    i also don't get why DCI merged the two separate effect scores into the same sheet. even w/ the change the judges still seem to be coming to the divergent opinions they would have if it were still separately visual GE and music GE. like clearly they're leaning into what side they know.
  2. packwick
    Boston overtook Bluecoats tonight. no surprise. show was setting off my "potential medalist! potential medalist!" alarms even at that standstill, and for whatever reason i'm always right about this crap. we'll see if they're able to maintain it. Bloo's score looks as expected. 1st place visual leaning effect and visual analysis on the strength of composition, but 4th in every music caption. deeeefffinitely not the best sounding Bloo i've heard. some, actually a lot, of that is the music selections/arranging. i don't think i would have ever picked this music for a marching show, and while it works better than i would have expected, it doesn't fully work. juuust kinda..... too simple sounding, even with the rhythmic demands. def. has some cool parts tho.
  3. packwick
    lol yaaaaassss! the GOAT returns! actually the nearly 20 year old equipment vocab might not be enough to win today, but everything else is
  4. packwick
    just quickly eyeballed the recap. swap the two GE scores for Bloo (visual leaning vs. music leaning) but no other major disagreements. 2-4 will be a nasty fight.
  5. packwick
    ok just wrapped up watching the top 4 and checking the scores. had trouble finding SCV. i watched Boston first, and they were overall excellent. love the big bombastic Mozart at the end. good visual clarity. still love the tango section. guard is pretty "tosstastic" to quote Rubi. not great blending of movement w/ equipment skills, but they do what works for upstairs. show still felt like the designers were following rather than leading, like they studied championship shows of the past and cobbled them together. still very enjoyable. watched Blue Devils next. my how this one has come together. very obviously the best group of the night. by the end i said "at least 2 points higher than Boston." they know that strangeness is the primary characteristic of great art, but they match that strangeness with incredible visual clarity and musical lushness. such wonderful, huge, sonorous sounds. spectacular moments and some thrilling and inventive drill interspersed w/ all the running around. obvious champion. obvious obvious obvious. Bluecoats were a little frustrating. they have a forward thinking top 2 design, extremely effective, especially visually (such wonderfully layered moments), but the performance really wasn't there tonight. lots of holes didn't help, visual program dirtier than expected. there was just a thinness and lack of control in a lot of the brass playing. music serves us a mood, which is innovative, but maybe not extremely exciting. they do their own thing, as always. Crown's QR code thing isn't entirely original, see Stoneman Douglas from WGI this year, but it's interesting. the show is still pretty original for DCI in its direct 4th wall breaking, if a 4th wall even really exists in drum corps. musically they are so fabulous, but the visual program is dated and cluttered. so much of it just looks slapdash, somehow even moreso than all the running around. but then those musical moments are amazing. audience absolutely loves this one though. could help them. as could a better performance time. after watching those 4, i thought BD very comfortably 1st, and the rest close to each other and not sure where to place them. couldn't really decide bc they all have strengths and weaknesses.
  6. packwick
    i'll search YT for vids after the show. Flo ain't gettin' any more of my money!
  7. packwick
    actually more generally looking at the recap again all the judges whose names i recognize had Cavies 3rd or lower, and all the ones i don't recognize had them 1st. i could be wrong, maybe they'll surge back tomorrow, but that might not be a good sign for the Cavies.
  8. packwick
    considering the Cavies were a couple points behind the Blue Stars tonight and tied with Phantom, i'm guessing Cadets over Cavies is yet another prediction of yours that will come true. recap was a mess. GE 1 for Cavies was 4th place, GE 2 was 1st place. the GE 1 judge is definitely the more prolific of the two judges. he judges for all 3 major marching arts organizations. i see his name all the time. GE judge 2 is a "who dat?" for me. probably focuses on DCI. hard to tell what other judges will think. my feeling is that there was a conflict between putting the Cavies where they were before COVID messed them up and putting them where they probably belong. honestly wasn't a big fan of the show at the premiere, if i didn't already make that really obvious.
  9. packwick
    oh it's far too late in my life cycle for that anyway, besides dementia. i've already emerged from my chrysalis.
  10. packwick
    eww no. never auditioned. haha, ok wait let me rephrase that. i have several reasons. first of all i had trouble seeing the appeal of spending an entire summer doing marching band and then having to do it all over again right after that, sometimes with concert band on top of it when we went to clinics. i didn't see the appeal of traveling across the country with strangers. i was enough of a basketcase already. drum corps shows in my childhood era were mostly dull, dull, dull, despite the flashy difficulty. i didn't appreciate them. they were pretty much just drill + music. like, you've got an imagination, right guys? avail yourselves of it! u mostly didn't get the conceptual richness and elaborate sets that would eventually leak from WGI and BOA into DCI. today's marchers are lucky. the shows are more alive than ever before. even tho i was a brass player, I missed the color of the woodwinds. it all just sounded... bare... to my ears. i was an elitist and didn't view DCI as something a "serious musician" did. not sure why i had that perception. we had several kids march with the Cadets and Cavies while still in high school, back when those corps were on top. our marching director at the time was the visual caption head for the Cavies, which may have helped a little. these were good kids, solid musicians, but for the most part more like... region band level? hahahaha. i'm terrible. hey it was region 9 tho! but it's also why my eyes nearly roll out of their sockets when some loggerhead claims DCI marching membership as some especially rarefied class, or that DCI shows are somehow special aside from the difficulty. all that "hyuk hyuk, derp derp, this show belongs in BOA, hyuk hyuk." tell me you're an idiot without telling me you're an idiot. it's all marching band, sweetie. now, go hump a blowup doll to satisfy your borderline personality disorder and constant need for affection. psha!
  11. packwick
    Nola had Vanguard 6 points lower than the Devs in music analysis. long-time judge. frequently judges major finals events. Vanguard will see her again. that's a huge gap in that caption. overall i'm gonna guess that the newly added ending isn't saving the show like it needs to, tho i haven't watched it since the 1st contest. could be a fluke, but my first impressions are usually spot on. Vanguard prooobably had my least favorite show of the likely top 5, still a good show tho. still haven't watched Cadets and a few of the others.
  12. packwick
    gotta do what makes u happy. and maybe what makes u wealthier, too. no need to feel guilty about it. sometimes u need to think about yourself for once. COVID must have been a real eye opener for teachers. especially in Texas, where they're mostly treated like crap.
  13. packwick
    so whaduwee think about that 78+ Boston just got popped? i feel like those judges were experienced enough to know what message they were sending. like, we all know that they pay attention to the other scores and watch videos on YouTube. u ain't foolin' anyone, gals! tho there is that distinct possibility that that panel would score EVERYONE higher. it would be pretty surprising to see Boston come back from being 2 pointed by Bloo, but who knows.
  14. packwick
    lol, is that a quote from Always Sunny when they throw the child beauty pageant in the bar? sounds familiar but maybe it's more general, i dunno. i feel like i'd be like Charlie if i had to teach kids, right down to the cruelty and favoritism lol. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ead_ASIa-OQ
  15. packwick
    the perfect précis, my dear. kind of similar to what Lee Carlson said about effect in an interview w/ Dan Potter. speaking of, do u know what the DCI artistic director does? i still don't fully get it. i know Michael Cesario used to do it. i typed in his name and got this childish Google group thread from 2001 where they're all like, "What does he even do anyway?!" and then somebody randomly interjects something like, "Can we talk about all of these creepy homosexuals invading our activity, especially guard, and how we all have to pretend to be okay with it?" followed by "We don't really know if he's g@y!" it was awful, but it also made me laugh really hard. of course the gays love this stuff! it's music and pageantry! at the very least 20th century American art and poetry and music is like a Who's Who of g@y America. speaking of Michael C, i remember doing the clinics with him at LSP and being a judge runner for him and whomever else. i was in this featured small ensemble and he comes rushing down from the stands during rehearsal, extremely animated, somewhat intense, and flamboyant, wearing a bandana, and he proceeds to pose each of us to make us look more fabulous upstairs. i was an anxious freshman closetcase thinking, "God is this gonna be what i'm like when i grow up?" hahaha. edit - apparently there's a Don't Say G@y law on this board. hahahaha. ah, feels like the early 2000s all over again.
  16. packwick
    dropping by to say that the new assistant is Aaron Stickley from Dickinson HS. somebody just texted me a social media post of a student meetup. best wishes to all! hopefully all these vacant band director positions get filled soon.
  17. packwick
    awww, thanks! i try so hard!
  18. packwick
    75.45. yeaaaaah, judges not doing much right now to change my initial impression that the Devs are the frontrunners yet again. even w/ all the flow issues, which may have been improved.
  19. packwick
    looks like Boston is startin' to climb. top groups are tight right now. Boston is hungry for a medal.
  20. packwick
    hmmm, gonna guess that Crown took GE tonight on the strength of those big exciting moments that Bloo sorta lacks. still think Bloo's show is much more interesting overall tho. like, something actually different. no show screams champion to me like BA's did at the start of the band season tho. like i don't even wanna know how much higher that show would have scored if they had performed last in finals and didn't have 4 bands after them. like sheesh. perfect GE score probably.
  21. packwick
    i like Crown. they sound amazing, very full-bodied and well-blended, with excellent technical accuracy. still feel like the show is kinda... BOA circa 2000 with all the fabric and streamer flags. i'm like, "we did that!" hahaha. gettin' major Flanagan snake skin vibes when they wrap themselves up in the fabric. kinda sloppy looking tho. some really powerful moments. i give em props for trying something new, i usually find their shows too old-fashioned. QR code stuff is still really try-hard tho. "clap your hands! please love us!!!" let your show speak for itself! Bloo has the more interesting program overall, but i feel like Crown obviously sounds better. wonder who comes out on top tonight.
  22. packwick
    also, "stand-tune-ish" must be a new favorite adjective of yours, u have been using it a lot. hahahaha. i like it tho. i hear it.
  23. packwick
    agreed. the only thing that turns me off a little is the "check all the boxes" thing about the Devils bc it seems like it could lead to the trap of thinking that the evaluation criteria on the judges' sheets are somehow significantly different from the criteria of a seasoned or even sometimes a casual observer of band/corps. like, who doesn't want a show that has variety, is emotionally impactful, flows wells, is well-performed, etcetera? ppl like to say show X was entertaining while show Y is the judge favorite, but literally the BOA effect sheets, for example, used to say "your job as an effect judge is to let yourself be entertained." so it's not that show Y isn't as entertaining; it's just not as entertaining to that particular person, who may be inexperienced.
  24. packwick
    just finished lapping up the leftovers on YouTube. please give me more, sir! only watched the top 3 and made sure to watch before looking at scores. i agree Bloo then Boston then Cavies. Boston should have been at least 2 points ahead of Cavies. Cavies, oh boys i luv u, but that was kind of a hot mess performance-wise, both musically and visually. i don't understand them ahead of Boston in music analysis. did that judge not hear the balance issues and absolutely awful intonation issues during the small ensemble moments? like, lol wut? DCI and BOA judges, i swear... Boston had great clarity for this time of year. nothing especially original, but it was engaging and impactful. visual was great, exquisite in parts, up until the last 3rd or so of the show. then we got more dirt (duh) and the visual started to get a bit lazy. the tango part is so cool musically, but they stage it as mostly a park and bark, with my least favorite visual ever: the jam out. ugh! lazy! this could be a medalist though. Bluecoats have imagination to spare. oddball Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas-ish show, with the hippy dippy narration, but it's welded well to the structure of the show and has a clear theme. i didn't like the music selections listening to them in advance, contemporary jazz crap, but they sound so different on the field. very groovy. brass is lacking a bit of power and clarity at times, some of that comes from the franticness, there's so much going on at once. give us bigger ice floe moments in the whirlpool to cling onto. set design is once again the best. somewhat reminiscent of TWHS 2019 actually, similar sunset colors and placement on the field. except with, u know, that giant face. who does that? besides Wes Cartwright. lots of little visual and aural gifts. the wheels going over the corps. how clever. the keytar brings us some 80s cool. i do think the Devils have clearer, more obvious WOW moments in their show than the Coats, more of those stereotypical horns blaring corps moments, like Moon River, even if i only see Bayonetta on a pole now when i hear it (gamers will get that reference) but the show also feels more stale, like they've done it before.
  25. packwick
    now there's some nostalgic music. where's the toxic waste, a la Winston Churchill? they sound great. i could see them pushing toward the top part of the bottom half of DCI finals.
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