Origin

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.

After Reagan’s probably disappointing Grand Nats finish last year, I wasn’t expecting them to do something this ambitious. What they are attempting visually is insaneeeee. I love it.

Marcus…I’m gonna need to see that again to form my full opinions. It just didn’t seem like their best run. The first few movements were great but that double tonguing stuff needs some serious cleaning. Soloists didn’t have their best run either. Other than that they sounded fantastic and obviously move well. Guard is maybe a bit smaller and weaker but still very very solid. Coppell was the clear winner for me. I know I’m probably very wrong but here’s my ranking of the bands I watched (based a lot on enjoyment factor) : Coppell Prosper Keller Marcus Wakeland Forney/TC TC/Forney Haltom

Timber Creek was really solid. I did not like the uniforms when I saw an up close picture, but I think the upstairs effect is great with the matching props. Like I said before, I think UIL judges will eat this show up once it’s nice and clean. I think they performed the whole show, so they have plenty of time to clean. The climax in the ballad was gorgeous and definitely my favorite part of the show. They have really great impact moments, they just need to work on solidifying everything in between. But I think the mic issues are mainly to blame.

Haltom was solid. The show just feels basic unfortunately. There’s not a whole lot for the students to work with.

Forney just gets better every year. They’re really going in with all the electronic sound effects. I wish they marched a bit more drill. It’s a lot of fluttering and “follow the leader”.

WOW, Coppell is the full package. Like last year, they’ve filled the field with props, even having some infront of the sideline. The band and guard fills the entire field on that first hit, wow. Soloists are just superb.

Wakeland was great. Very minimal with the props again this year. Looks like the whole show is on the field. They do alotttt of playing on the move and it’s all so exposed. They also had ballad mic issues but the soloist handled it flawlessly.

Oh they’ll easily be in finals, very very likely top half.

Prosper was very good. I much prefer this show to the emoji one. They have a really really strong visual presence with their big guard and the approximately 1 million chairs they have on the field. Maybe some weird stuff going on with the soloists in the ballad idk. The Walking with Hero’s ballad sounded so familiar and then I realized it was in Keller’s 2018 opener, so it was cool to hear that beautiful piece used again.

Keller sounds gooood (from what I can tell with all the wind on the mic that’s clearly not meant to pick up marching band contest audio 😂). The show feels more GE oriented (for lack of better words) than last year. I love the part with the big bike drill set that moves across the field. The ballad is 🔥. All the visual stuff is clearly not finished with the guard not being in costume, etc. I recognized one of the tarps as an old indoor percussion tarp that I guess they cut up? idk I’m assuming it’s a placeholder.

I love CTJ’s band and guard uniforms. The overall visual presentation of the show is really nice. The opener is a lot harder than they make it look. Ballad is growing on me. After ballad transition was weird. The tenor sax solo was excellent and brought the right amount of fun that we expect from them before diving back into the holst. The arrangements are super interesting.

Seven Lakes’ guard is huuuuuuge.

I think I’m most excited to see Seven Lakes, mostly for the fact that I have seen absolutely nothing from them so far.