2023 WGI: The Slay All Day Thread

[packwick]

just watched arcadia for the first time. this guard is going to be a huge pain in the a**, competitively speaking lol, for the other top guards in a year or two. looks like a Gaines show.

[Rubisco]

2 hours ago, packwick said:

just watched arcadia for the first time. this guard is going to be a huge pain in the a**, competitively speaking lol, for the other top guards in a year or two. looks like a Gaines show.

I was VERY impressed by Arcadia. They have Rosie Queen consulting with them, and it shows. It wouldn't surprise me if Michael Gaines is also on the team. He and Rosie are close friends.

[Rubisco]

20 hours ago, packwick said:

theyll win gold as long as their designers and choreographers figure it out. the team has a distinct voice it just needs a little polishing.

I know you've been critical of their design, but The Woodlands was 2nd place pretty much across the board in the upstairs content-related sub-captions -- in both Design Analysis and GE. Actually, you yourself said a few weeks ago that you'd have them 2nd place in repertoire if you were judging GE, which I agree with, although I, too, would have had Tarpon in first place. So much for that happening! Carmel was 1st place across the board in content. 😅 I mean, I understand that from a staging and skills perspective. Gaines never "flails about" with his drill writing, to borrow your term. 😄 Really, it was the Individual Analysis captions that cost The Woodlands the medal, so maybe it's more of a choreography and cleanliness issue than a staging or conceptual one.

[packwick]

dont get me wrong, they do looots of things unusually well. they preeetty consistently choose interesting and high quality music, unfortunately most guard ppl don't have good taste in music and consequently set their shows up for mediocrity. they don't usually spell things out for the audience, allowing for deeper interpretations. they know to show rather than tell whiiich unfortunately is like a 99th+%ile skill in the guard world. they often do themes u haven't quite seen before.

im piiicky picky picky bc they're knocking at the door, they're right there, just liiittle bitty things are holding them back, well little bitty besides the rehearsal restrictions. ive felt the same way about the marching program previous years and prob still will but ofc it's all easier said than done + i have a kinda editorial distance from the work they don't have.

also think they miiight wanna start a guard #3 + reduce the size of the other two a little, play the game and rely more on their strongest girls. buuut that would prob require adding another full time guard director job. w/ 70 kids or whatever, hundreds w/ McC, u need it.

[LKendrick]

Still obsessed with Dobyns-Bennett. Been awhile since a show in the realm of the marching arts has hit what I personally love most that hard

[packwick]

3 minutes ago, LKendrick said:

Still obsessed with Dobyns-Bennett. Been awhile since a show in the realm of the marching arts has hit what I personally love most that hard

their was show amazing, fun + weirdly affecting at the end despite the funny bizarreness of it. "the air was full of monsters," now there's some classic poetry.

[tlittle13123]

3 hours ago, packwick said:

dont get me wrong, they do looots of things unusually well. they preeetty consistently choose interesting and high quality music, unfortunately most guard ppl don't have good taste in music and consequently set their shows up for mediocrity. they don't usually spell things out for the audience, allowing for deeper interpretations. they know to show rather than tell whiiich unfortunately is like a 99th+%ile skill in the guard world. they often do themes u haven't quite seen before.

im piiicky picky picky bc they're knocking at the door, they're right there, just liiittle bitty things are holding them back, well little bitty besides the rehearsal restrictions. ive felt the same way about the marching program previous years and prob still will but ofc it's all easier said than done + i have a kinda editorial distance from the work they don't have.

also think they miiight wanna start a guard #3 + reduce the size of the other two a little, play the game and rely more on their strongest girls. buuut that would prob require adding another full time guard director job. w/ 70 kids or whatever, hundreds w/ McC, u need it.

Its crazy how much you hate on twhs! “Favorite place 4th behind avon?” Bro chill.

My former coach competed at worlds this year so I got to stream. Came here to see whats up and would love to have seen more support for the home teams! Lol 

congrats too all actual participants this year! Slayyyeeddd!!

And to the ones reading the house down, what did your guard place in SW finals? I’ll wait. 

[lost]

1 hour ago, tlittle13123 said:

Its crazy how much you hate on twhs! “Favorite place 4th behind avon?” Bro chill.

My former coach competed at worlds this year so I got to stream. Came here to see whats up and would love to have seen more support for the home teams! Lol 

congrats too all actual participants this year! Slayyyeeddd!!

And to the ones reading the house down, what did your guard place in SW finals? I’ll wait. 

You seem weirdly pressed. I think you’re lost. Nothing in the comment you were replying to warranted *that* response.

It was a little ignorant of the situation The Woodlands is in, given starting a third guard is hefty work they don’t have the privilege to do at the moment but nothing super critical.

I’m sure that comment you mentioned had no malice to it. It’s just a joking reference to the fact that TWHS very often places 4th, from CG to marching band that just seems their unfortunate fate. 4th place at the SA Super has also won the UIL SMBC gold thrice now…so not a bad place to be at all historically at least for marching band.

Do not like unnecessarily snarky replies to mundane comments, so I thought I’d come out and say this.

Constructive critique is not hating, interpreting as such tells more about your personal character than others.

[Hard Core Band Fan]

8 hours ago, tlittle13123 said:

Its crazy how much you hate on twhs! “Favorite place 4th behind avon?” Bro chill.

My former coach competed at worlds this year so I got to stream. Came here to see whats up and would love to have seen more support for the home teams! Lol 

congrats too all actual participants this year! Slayyyeeddd!!

And to the ones reading the house down, what did your guard place in SW finals? I’ll wait. 

You are, of course, welcome to your opinion, but you are completely wrong about your take on this forum. We are fanatical supporters of our Texas guards, but are honest about each one's particular situation in these competitions. We have nothing but respect and admiration for these students and leaders. Maybe re-read this thread with that in mind and you may get a different idea of what is being said. If you are looking for criticism and negativity, you will always find it.

[packwick]

thaaaanks for defending me guys hahahaha.

i wasn't sure anyone would wander over from TikTok. my old school's guard placed 4th in SW btw lol.

[Hard Core Band Fan]

16 minutes ago, packwick said:

thaaaanks for defending me guys hahahaha.

i wasn't sure anyone would wander over from TikTok. my old school's guard placed 4th in SW btw lol.

You are so very welcome and thanks so much for your knowledgeable insights!

[packwick]

6 minutes ago, Hard Core Band Fan said:

You are so very welcome and thanks so much for your knowledgeable insights!

awww this is waaay too sweet.

it's all just the price of doing MotherBoy band and guard events decades after u have graduated lololol

it's funny bc i got that from my sister the other day, like why u still do dis. and it's like, well it's something mom and i do to hang out together, bc shes still really into it and getting older, and is it really any less weird than being into pro sports teams you literally have nothing to do with? i don't think so hahahaha.

[packwick]

this is also weeeeirdly full circle for me, bc i got into a huge amount of trouble for criticizing our show design on xanga back in the day. i thought i was being helpful but Brett was fuuurious lol. i guess i was pretty precocious tho and was proven correct when they changed designers later on and shot right up to the top. really i was connecting the dots, like why are our perf scores near the top but our GE ones not and why do i feel like it's being blamed on us kids not working hard enough lol. i think they knew, they just didn't want to hear it from a 16 year old or whatever lol.

[Rubisco]

I know sometimes it seems like we're all being a little too critical, but it's because we really want to see all of the Texas bands and guards win at the national level. That said, we're also just fans of band and color guard in general, so if a unit from out of state really impresses us, we're going to talk about it and give those kids some praise, because they work hard, too!

I don't think anything @packwick has said recently is even remotely mean-spirited. A case of Picky Alumnus Syndrome? Yeah, maybe that, but I think we all have been there. Also, his tone, his entire persona here, is very tongue-in-cheek, very jokey. It belies a deeper knowledge of the activity, but I also wouldn't take anything he says too, too seriously.

[Rubisco]

It's almost time for the percussion side of WGI! The schedules can be found here:

https://www.wgi.org/percussion/world-championships-per/schedules-per/?_ga=2.248242503.1345756561.1681747315-1559077481.1678222036

It looks like all the TX high schools are participating in the World marching division. Good luck to Burleson Centennial, Cy-Fair, Boswell, and Clear Brook!

And good luck to the Independent groups as well: UTRGV Percussion, UTSA, Sun City Independent, Monarch Independent, Rhythmic Force Percussion, and Vigilantes Indoor Percussion.

[packwick]

allllrighty, after multiple freezes and app re-installs and messing around w/ settings/permissions, i finally got my videos to upload. there should be several from Dayton in Apr guard on the drive. ill leave them for a while but i'll eventually have to remove them bc they're taking up a lot of space.

[Parkwoodmom]

7 hours ago, packwick said:

allllrighty, after multiple freezes and app re-installs and messing around w/ settings/permissions, i finally got my videos to upload. there should be several from Dayton in Apr guard on the drive. ill leave them for a while but i'll eventually have to remove them bc they're taking up a lot of space.

Thank you for sharing!

[Rubisco]

Congratulations to all four Texas high school percussion groups for making WGI Scholastic World Class Finals!

And congrats to Monarch Independent and Vigilantes Indoor Percussion for doing the same in Independent World!

[Hard Core Band Fan]

Watched the Scholastic World and Independent World percussion finals today. Wow! So many incredible groups in these two classes. My overall favorite was Dartmouth HS's Raven show. Hopefully some will post the finals performance, but here's one from the day before:

https://youtu.be/soa0JGnC1rw

[aer06]

I want to give a HUGE congratulations to all of the Texas indoor percussion groups who performed tonight at WGI world championship finals!

In scholastic world we had:

7th place- Cy Fair HS with a 93.413

9th place- Clear Brook HS with a 90.575

10th place- Burleson Centennial HS with a 90.313

12th place- Boswell HS with an 89.200

And in independent world we had:

8th place- Monarch Independent with a 93.000

15th place- Vigilantes Indoor Percussion with an 80.925

Congrats to all groups for representing Texas so well!