Hard Core Band Fan

Hey, I'm a Pärt fan! You are, however, correct about being boring for a guard show. Schoenberg as well.

Yep, never underestimate Cedar Park.

Good to see a color guard from the military band wasteland of Northeast Texas! With Marshall and Mt. Pleasant, this makes the only three here today.

Definitely a better effort this year for Round Rock. Better than I've seen in many years.

Through Through or throw?

Just checked Flomarching and WGI events are now showing.

I noticed all links available concerning WGI for 2024 reply with 404 messages. Hopefully it's just a website revamp.

I think more bands will be moving to this model. Color guards are a big expense and some time a huge hassle for the band directors. My daughter was in the guard and I really like her being in it, but the drama was maddening at times with the students, their parents, and even the guard staff. Most of that drama could be controlled by the head band director, but is often not a priority compared to all else they have to do. I don't welcome this change, but I can understand why it is becoming a viable option for some.

Thanks for making my point. Couldn't have done it better myself.

Thanks for the parenting advice! I am an old man and my children went through band programs before the generation that needed cry closets and safe spaces. I wasn't really disagreeing with what you guys were posting about, but the fact that you couldn't have anyone have a different opinion from your own. Anyone that even appears to disagree with you is a bad person or a bad parent. My kids, now thriving and productive adults, were/are tough and can handle what life dishes out for them. That is really my only point. Life is hard and not fair and difficult. I find it so amusing that so many people only respect people who agree with them. Actually, it's just pitiful.

Hilarious response, just as expected.

I know you have no Idea. Wasn't speaking to you. Go ahead and continue your rants. Get it out of your system. Your opinions are only valuable to you. You might spend a moment or two to reflect on that. I'm sure you will not.

I think this person just has to win the argument. Let them win and maybe they'll move on and we can get back to something more productive.

Round Rock only goes on odd number years.

Well said. Oddly enough, learning to handle success can be a real problem. I have seen it multiple times where a program has a very successful season and for various reasons, has a much less successful year the next year. Building a tradition of excellence is a very difficult thing to do for so many reasons.

Check out their 2014 Grand Nationals show on YouTube. They won that year. Earlier in the spring of 2014, Their color guard won the WGI Scholastic World division.

It's just money, right?

Not going to happen. There is no motivation for them to to do it. They can both attend a super-regional and the Grand Nationals via a 30 minute bus ride.

In that case, why have competitions? You could just record a video, submit it for critique, and then the videos could be processed and the winner posted online. It would save money and would be better for the environment, greatly reducing everyone's carbon footprint. The scary thing is this isn't too far from the crazy things already happening today.

It's a financial strain, for sure. When my daughter was at a Central Texas school, we had several trips in a row and I had to work a second job as we were volunteers that travelled with the guard to all of their football games and competitions, even the ones in Indianapolis and Dayton. But I will say that it was all worth it and if I had a chance to do it again, I would gladly do whatever it took. I certainly never had any opportunities like this when I was in high school and feel blessed that my daughter had the chance to go to the Grand Nationals twice, the WGI World Championships once, and march in the Rose Parade.

Anyone have the multi-cams for the finals? If so, please PM me.

I always wonder how different the prelim scores of the same finals bands played one after another in the same order would be. It's such a different thing to hear the best bands side by side than spaced out throughout the day with, many times, average or below average bands in-between. I think the judges mostly get it correct, but the actual scores can be very different when comparing prelims to semis or finals.

I agree. The first time I saw Broken Arrow that year I knew they were going to win. That show was a monster! So was Hebron's show, but BA was just a little bigger monster.

It was way better!

I didn't experience that, but compared to last year, they were much better.