Origin

Lebanon Trail was a nice surprise!

Specifically, the very end of the Symphonic Metamorphosis when they play all together on the move. Some stick outs/unsupported sounds. Nothing uncleanable, that piece is hard!

LD Bell was solid! I know they’re with a new designer, but it still felt very in line with what they’ve done these past few years. Visually, pretty compelling with all the butterflies and big guard. The Symphonic Metamorphosis arrangement didn’t totally excite me, and there were some thinner moments musically.

Timber Creek! Honestly wouldn’t be surprised if they pushed for top half here. Not the craziest or most demanding program, but it’s just super solid.

Rock Hill was fun, could definitely be in the conversation for finals.

Carroll has gone all out with the theming, wow. Its a lot, maybe a bit much for me. This show is AMBITIOUS. And also dirtyyy. Luckily, the entire show is on the field and they have tons of time to clean.

Keller still appears to be using placeholder tarps/props? They sound amazingggg at times, but I’m distracted by the hodge-podgeness of the visual design. Trombones 🔥🔥. They are definitely trying a different approach by having the whole show out there.

Interesting direction for Waxahachie. I’m never the biggest fan of flat rectangle props. The Eiffel Tower stage is really cool though. Very cute show. As usual, they sound great. I think the whole show is on the field? If so, they’re wayyyy ahead of where they were last year.

Wow, Lone Star was awesome.

Hebron, that was disgusting (in a good way of course). The simultaneous musical AND visual demand is insaneeeeee. Interesting juxtaposition of themes, ocean waves and sound waves I guess. The show is quite upbeat and at times poppy, which I actually found very enjoyable. Going after Marcus, it was obviously nowhere near as clean (and it shouldn’t be).

Marcus was nearly flawless, as we have come to expect. Big improvement over HEB for me. Thematically, the show is a bit less accessible than the past few years (not a bad thing).

Wakeland was great. No frills, just amazing marching and playing. Closer was noticeably a bit dirtier than what came before (mainly because everything else was sooooo clean), but they have 2 full weeks to keep cleaning.

LD Bell made top half here last year by 0.05 in prelims. They looked solid at HEB this year. Visual performance was pretty good, but the music performance didn’t quite hold up to the other heavy hitters there, imo. Wakeland has an unfortunate prelims time though, which could hurt their chances for top half.

I guess unpopular opinion but I think Flower Mound is pretty great. Yeah maybe the drill is a bit too blocky, but the show is certainly not easy.

Wow, didn’t realize how big the gap between top and bottom half was. I also thought Forney would be much closer to the top half, especially considering their surprise 4th place finish last year.

Congrats Marcus! Also congrats to Wakeland on repeating their second place finish from last year! Their competitive season ends in just three weeks. I wish they were taking this show to San Antonio!

Keller sounds fantastic and is playing a lot of very interesting music. They also have more on the field than they ever do at this point in the season. I can’t wait to see all the visual stuff added in, hopefully next week. I wonder if they’ve thought about putting soloists on those anti-gravity prop things 🤔😂 idk. All the woodwinds soloists are great, but they need a meaty woodwind feature, hopefully one’s coming in the closer.

Love love love Coppell this year.

Timber Creek had a better performance in finals. Maybe a little safe in the drill department for me. They sound great though.

Prosper has a fantastic show that’s meant to peak much later. Some timing issues here and there, but the show has serious Nats finals potential.

They made finals in 2015 and I think they’ve attended more recently but aren’t going this year.

I wish they attended San Antonio!

Yes, much better than prelims. Ballad is gooooorgeous.

Finals schedule: 2022-schedule-heb-finals.pdf

Nothing too crazy with the results. Don’t fully agree with Marcus taking the music caption due to some dirt, but everything else makes sense. But who am I to judge based off windy stream audio.