tubapop

Bands of America. Why Change Anything?TM

I recognize you from our exchanges on Hornrank. First, a warm welcome to Texas, and very glad to see folks making it down to visit us. Some general thoughts - Venue: it's pretty easy to navigate, but my best tip is to stay at a hotel within walking distance of the Alamodome and to enter the dome from the north end. It is super easy to walk over if you take the bridge that crosses over the highway - you can waltz right in. I have never had to deal with a line in security or ticketing on that side. If you prefer quiet, find a hotel on the northwest end of downtown. It is easy and fairly cheap to Uber to the Alamodome - get dropped off at the circular ramp on the intersection of Montana and the highway and take the footbridge over to the north end entrance. Area: San Antonio is famous for its spot in Texas history (the Alamo) and its Riverwalk (which is really just a lazy river that runs through downtown). But the Riverwalk is dotted with tons of restaurants, hotels, entertainment, etc. It feels quite lively and festive all year round. If you feel like exploring, SA has a Sea World location to its northwest and Natural Bridge Caverns to its northeast. A Six Flags theme park to the west. Not a whole lot in terms of major attractions beyond that. Places to go/eat: The restaurants on the Riverwalk are the worst in the city, as a rule of thumb -- they can rely on their location for business and don't generally feel a lot of pressure to be great. A couple of good spots I personally like are Pinkerton's for Texas barbecue and Casa Rio for Tex Mex. Mostly expect to be blown away by some great student musicians.

I’m curious where you attended HS. I was in HS just slightly before you (mid to late 90s) and the Texas marching landscape was a lot smaller back then. If you were going to TXSMC back then I surely would know your HS’ name. Langham Creek HS here.

The topic of criticism in this forum is interesting and I have mixed feelings. Criticism is part of life, and learning to process it in a healthy way is part of growing up. There is a large contingent that has a knee jerk reaction to any perceived criticism here (“KIDS are reading this!”), and it’s like, well, let them read it. It’s ok for them to be exposed to opinions of other people. Do they need to be sheltered from everything? Those same people will produce predictions that put certain bands at the bottom or leave them out entirely—what do they think that does to those kids’ supposedly fragile egos? Can’t have it both ways. Then again, I recognize that high school marching band in America is an exceptionally positive, uplifting experience. The kind of thing you see for example with the vandy train thing and the reaction of the community - that is uncommon. That kind of camaraderie is what I’d like to see more often in the world. It is precious and rare. And so I recognize the low-criticism environment is conducive to that and I appreciate that. There’s some validity in both views.

Flomo takes visual and shares music...not so sure they won't win. They'd better

having attended in person last year i don't miss the excessive pageantry and drama. geez

can't tell whether you're being sarcastic or not ...

I didn't think it was so bad. Just the average city. Some really great pizza and cold weather which made it tolerable. But yeah, I agree, it would be wonderful if GN rotated throughout the country. Will never happen of course.

"Something's happening in Indy..."

Predictions - ignore spacing 1. Flower Mound 2. Avon 3. Carmel 4. Ronald Reagan 5. Broken Arrow 6. Marcus 7. TWHS 8. Blue Springs 9. Bentonville (AR) 10. Dripping Springs (TX) 11. William Mason 12. Wando

RONALD REAGAN BRASS!!!! WOW!!!!!!!!

Beautiful Avon show. Even better Flower Mound show. I didn’t like Broken Arrow as much. That tuba solo was…not my favorite. As a former tuba player myself, I appreciate the difficulty — it sounds like he was playing a solo full of pedal notes, which, let me tell you, are exceptionally hard to play. But it was a poor design choice as a lot of it comes out as blatty and out of tune. Again exceptionally hard to play those false low notes, I have to give him big props for that, but not my favorite design choice.

Sitting in the Alamodome for 1000 hours in a week will do that to you 😂

You're in a Texas bands website. We're going to have a Texas bias. We want our Team Texas to succeed and we're proud of our annual contingent. We want them to win and we think they deserve to win. It's okay. If our bias bothers you, you have the choice to not come here.

uhh..thanks...😂