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I'm wondering if the sounds come differently based on what device you are listening on. I didn't get a blasty tone from Phantom (will listen again tonight) and thought they had a fuller sound overall. I think the preference for the show makes a difference also as I liked Phantoms show way more than Stars. But the good thing is last year I hated the Blue Coats for the 1st half of the season, tolerated them in the weeks leading up to worlds, and loved what they put on the field for finals. I'm thinking the Stars may have a similar type show where it gets better and better as they add more and more stuff and clean it up. I still don't love some of the music but again, that could easily be because little things are missing. Either way, I was impressed with the quality last night for the first show from all 4, definitely going to make for a fun summer and probably more placement movement this year then in years past.

Ooohhh..had no clue about that. Appreciate the share. And here's my one gripe with their show which may have been because of cloudy air and a very very very close camera. I think a lot gets lost in the red on red (uniforms and props). I'm hoping they fix some of the staging to spread it out and maybe rethink some of that as the year goes on.

seen what's supposedly the first 5 mins of the Coats. filmed w/ a potato, poor quality. can't even tell what the set pieces are. opening feels like an Alice show, lots of tick tock tick tock clocklike stuff. cool buildup to the first hit, quickly shifts pace into slower section w/ reading of William Blake's The Garden of Love, woulda preferred a deeper cut poet like May Swenson but whatevs lol. pacing interesting but may be scoring risk. visual hard to tell, seemed... busy, lacking focus, also dirty, no idea when it was filmed.

i woulda had Stars ahead of Phantom last night, mainly via visGE content. visual program just more consistently varied and interesting until the extended park and bark near the end. but then i also thought the guard was pretty rough, frequently dropping and not really together, was really distracting, but they still ended up 1st in that caption from content which i probably wouldn't have even rewarded them for bc it was too dirty. gotta draw the line somewhere lol. by contrast Phantoms vis program mostly seemed like a bunch of scampering into pods, fluttering whatever u wanna call it, and repetitive lateral movement smack dab in the middle bw the 40 yard lines, tho some cool moments too, like when they streamed backfield for the ballad. it was like, Finally! some major front to back motion! lol also thought Star's brass was more controlled and nuanced. Phantom was very blasty but i guess that's the excitement for a lot of ppl.

Red alert! Red alert! 🚨 The annual Vandegrift May performance video has dropped! I repeat, the Vandegrift video has dropped! Calling all TXBands users! 😄 They sound amazing, of course. I agree that they seem to be chasing Hebron a little bit. So many technically challenging parts in that opener! They'll have a great year. I think The Woodlands sounds fantastic as well, by the way. They're producing clear, wonderful sounds, and I like the music a lot. My gut says they're going to have a very special season. By the way -- and I'm sure you know this already -- there's more to difficulty than the number of notes you play! Rhythmic challenges, intervallic challenges, phrasing challenges -- all can impress an educated listener. Also, like in WGI, I think the fundamental training needs to match the vocabulary for the vocabulary to be fully credited by a judge. A band shouldn't attempt something difficult just because they can and then have it be filthy!