packwick

i understand wanting to keep the element of surprise, and that's fine, we don't need to see the shows before a comp, but the effect on judges is overstated. vandy wins constantly, and their shows are always all over the internet, starting w/ their May camps and continuing throughout the season. a quality show will always be rewarded, even if a judge has already seen it multiple times.

yesss, Castle is on an upswing, looks like. verry very impressive. may make a strong case for Nats finals again. Avon fab as always. was wondering what the Russian connection to Piet Mondrian is lol, but think they're just going for the feel of the music. could look a little more Mondriesque methinks but will wait until i see it from a better angle.

well it's certainly there in bits and pieces. and i would agree that the overall package seems stronger, or at least more appealing than Vandy's rn. very very early tho.

went to a video game and star wars heavy metal cover band concert last nite, catching up on foosball perfs now. the partial h-town report: cyfair every bit as good as last yr right now methinks, maaaybe even better? maybe maybe?? we'll have to wait and see. loving their music, all the texture, evocative. sara bareyrrealuss, or whatever her name is. this perc writing is pretty baller. vis ofc needs some cleaning but whose doesn't? think it looks cool tho. thinkin they could snag a 1st place mGE judge or two again at the Houston regionals like they did at west Houston last yr? maybe?? will be tough. woodlands pretty clean already. balance and tuning issues w/ the complex chord at the end of part one, but fairly locked in besides that. gotta say tho, this first minute and a half looks easy besides the guard, think the winds march + play for like 5 secs. takin' the Big Easy too close to heart maybe lol. leaves em a lil vulnerable in certain POCs methinks. hope the rest brings bigger moments, more excitement. guard already cleaner than 99% of guards get by end season, with the hardest book. buuut i also think the equipment choreo could be more w/ the character of the music, more of a loose, jazzy swagger. Bridgeland looks fab again, haven't heard the music. bet they sound pretty good tho. probably, right? pure eleganza in this drill!! eleganza!! guard still huge, not quiiiite as clean as they were last yr at this time, but i think wind was a factor, rifle toss height seemed weirdly low, like they adjusted it for weather maybe?? cause the spinning phrases still looked open class. both them and cy fair are possibly gettin consistent, late season finals worthy like Pearland, cool to see. Indy, here they come!!!

Harmonielehre!! always makes for an effective opening statement, just BAM. really enjoying both the music and the vis so far. not super amorphous but it's very appealing.

many of the ones w/ sound can be found in the live streams at fan.hudl.com, including reagan, ctj, and leander. coppell and maybe avon are on there too but u need a subscription for those. ain't payin for friggin hs marching band!! baka!!! (unless my dear ol mom is paying...) assistant director is on staff at BAC. ive been told one of their captains was on BAC's weapon line this past season also, maybe returned w/ some new skills. def get the feeling Cyndi watched some drum corps this year and was like, eh, we can probably do that.

yesssss, it's quite crazy!! they have through their ballad and the very first part of their closer on the field. maybe taking the classic ctj approach of getting it all out there asap. drill writer is meeting his deadlines, that's for sure lol.

loving cy-fair's music book!!! tryin to put that together mentally w/ the visual i saw.

ctj maybe has their full opener? seemed pretty lengthy, w/ huge tempo shift to a slower part in the middle, couldn't hear that part, prob a woodwind ensemble. cool arrangement of Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra. pumpin' out some major volume. look and sound is i think more similar to last yr than before. too early to know.

reagan still great. might even like it a little more than this time last yr. hard to judge the quality of music tho 'cause the audio was streamed through a potato, but look and feel and energy is similar. huge full field drill w/ lots of bodies and symmetry. fallen?? like a fallen angel, maybe? kinda celestial sounding, maybe some angle wings in that opening drill? opens w/ symphonie fantastique chimes, then gets quite poppy/Reaganesque, before Verdi requiem kicks in.

oh ive known what inspired the show for weeks now. my choice of words there was just to indicate that it matches the theme well, which is great!!

haven't missed a beat. another beast of a show. look at all that marching and playing!! 👀 almost like the 90s and early 00s. nostalgiaaaa... gonna be a hard one to clean, but they always get cleaner than i think they will.

woodlands show is cool. music had a jazzy promenade vibe, like a stroll down a street. visual - hard to tell w/ the camera w/in the 40s and a lot of the action outside of the 40s. maybe started partway in, not sure? no benches tonite. some interval issues w/ the drumline right away as they marched out to side 2, but overall solid from the winds/perc for a first show. guard: challenging skills don't even seem to challenge them much. freakishly clean for first show. loved the 6 or 7 into the ground w/ the rifle kick. i like that they've made it a little harder for me to tell when their phrases begin and end, something Avon and Carmel do very well, could still be a little bit "spinnier" as they travel to their next dot, like full 360 rotations as opposed to just kinda posing w/ the weapons. minor complaint tho, i mean they're so far beyond where they need to be for a field show quality-wise. gives the whole thing a sheen of visual clarity.

cywoods def always on my mind as a potential finalist. rn they're like a consistent semifinalist at SA. just gotta make that last big push. tough competition this yr for sure.

congrats Bloo on your first undefeated season and highest score yet!! congrats to the other finalists too. some pretty great stuff in the mix this year. recaps, only thing that kinda annoys me is no perfect 10 in content for BAC's guard. like, c'mon!! 9.9s again. but other than that things look fine. congrats to the BAC guard on the first undefeated guard season since before 2013!!

thinkin BA would have to have a preeetty significant drop off to place out of the top 5, unless cp or bridgeland are way better than they were last year. losing design team could be rough for BA tho. wondering who's gonna replace Wes for them. they prob can get anyone they want.

phantommmm over crown after semis!! judges are giving "the people" most of what they want this yr, it seems. crowd rxn to phantom will be wilddd tomorrow night. blooooo on top again in semis. boring result but well-earned. undefeated season incoming. vis prof judge was a lil stingy overall, kept Bloo's total score just below a 98. think my og premiere prediction of a 98.5ish in finals will end up accurate, tho if im the one judging VA, MA, or GE, id prob have Bloo 100 in what, 99 in how, assuming a performance that isn't really obviously worse than usual, or a competitor's perf that's way better. BAC preeetty solidly in 2nd, GE should keep them there. very likely will earn their highest score yet. their best show ever, so go figure. guard still undefeated i think. a guard hasn't had an undefeated season since before 2013, as far back as results go on the DCI site. even BD's 2014 guard was beaten at a contest in Indiana by Bloo. 99-99-99 from the judge in semis. might see a perfect 100 for BAC in finals. will say it again, best guard ive ever seen in DCI, like Pride of Cincinnati but on the field, esp when viewed up close. holy vocabulary!! perc obviously doing something right to be slaying also, but personally not a big fan of the perc writing overall. too intrusive to the fabric of the music, 2nd mvmnt drags again for me. prefer Bloo's approach to perc writing, more dynamic and textured, fits with the brass better. think it's more effective that way. devils are obviously amazing performers but the show never came together. looking forward to next year for them. hope 2025's vis program has more of that clarity and balance they're known for. wanna be able to "hang it on a wall" the way @Rubisco says. also hope they do a theme that's more left-field for them. no more simply picking an artist or art movement or art work! i forbid thee!! wondering if heads will roll at Cavies after this season. currently in 11th. feel like the design team should be given at least a couple chances before being guillotined, but ppl in this activity are quite impulsive, actually frequently quite nasty compared to, say, the color guard side of WGI. but that's a diff discussion LOL.

i hope so, i thought their price is right show last yr was great. made me smile from start to finish. must have quite a strong music program, too, to have come out over both woodlands schools at the area level in honor band this past cycle. ofc not quite the same thing as marching music, but should have at least a little bit of a correlation lol.

it won't happen this year, but the committee considered a proposal last session about adding a guard/auxiliary judge. they voted to monitor it, i think, something like that. so it's not off the table yet. is pretty weird that every other section of the band gets its own judge except guard. kinda disrespectful, actually. buuut then there's the question of whether all the competing bands at State have an auxiliary group (pretty sure they do, for 6A at least) and how to compare dance team versus guard. last question i don't think is an issue. dance team should have a significantly more developed dance vocab to be credited the same in the "what" subcaption as a guard that does both dance and equipment. question of where to place the judge could be tricky too. dance teams will usually look cleaner from upstairs than a guard. work is less exposed from that vantage point, w/o the 6 foot pole flag features. prob should be field level, or mid stands, to really sample the clarity and uniformity of the technique.

it is. but you do you, hon.

woodlands guard has some sort of triangle motif going on. triangles on their 2024 guard t-shirts, a couple of triforce symbols on yellow flags, i think they're new flags, not sure. sooo, def this show is about pyramid schemes, obviously. or inverted funnel programs... jk. don't know yet. will prob be announced soon tho.

lol well good luck to those of us who think they can make placement predictions based on show themes/titles. you'll need it!! not a huge consideration in scoring as long as there's something unifying the production. a truly creative one can make u more memorable, however. maybe a slight elevation over other groups in your score neighborhood.

nooot sure it's been posted but Pearland announced their show Maximus on instagram. music from Gladiator in the background. Cartwright Theatre incoming. funny, i watched that movie all the way through for the first time a few weeks ago. all my straight guy friends' favorite movie LOL. it was a'ight. gets better once it gets to Rome. curious to see how Paul Mescal pulls it off in the upcoming sequel. brilliant and charismatic actor (Normal People, Aftersun, All of Us Strangers, etc.)

to be fair, u were more muted with your cricitism.

maybe we should, like, ya know, wait for Shadow Creek's show to be actually fielded before we start with the breathless pearl clutching and calling it "wildly racist"??? just a thought, kiddos!