knoxisawesome348

Yes, and Reagan too!

Congratulations to Ronald Reagan! This must be their first regional win in a decade, but jeez this means San Antonio sure isn't going to be pretty.

Reagan taking GE over CTJ and The Woodlands is a huge shock to me. They must have quite the show since what I've been hearing from The Woodlands on those football podcasts is quite impressive. Congrats to them!

It looks like Leander got a 0.25 penalty in prelims. I've never seen a penalty given in anything but tenths. Is this a new change possibly?

I agree about your comments on the visual. I feel like there are certain moments where it's impressive, but others where a lot more could be added (and World of Wonder does top this show in that respect). I feel like given two weeks time, the show will be a lot cleaner, at least musically. It's definitely my favorite show I've seen so far this year. As far as Round Rock goes, they are very very clean visually. Visual performance and VGE scores will be their friend this season and it looks like only Marcus could maybe take the visual caption from them at Arlington (but I doubt it). However, with a smaller band, they don't quite produce the same volume we're used to from them. With that in mind, they have a more refined sound that should come together even more in the coming weeks. I'm not 100% on board with the music design (it's an Appalachian Spring show) and the opening felt strangely drawn out to me, but I think when they add the last few minutes in it'll make more sense. I also saw their preliminary performance which according to the bloggers wasn't as strong as their finals performance. I do think if BOA Arlington was tomorrow, either they or Marcus would win. We'll see this show in Grand National finals no doubt.

Keller Central:

I've gotten to see good, recent videos of Hebron, Flower Mound, Marcus, Keller, Keller Central, and Wakeland. I also got to see Round Rock live in BOA Austin preliminaries. That just leaves LD Bell, Coppell, Richland, and a few others that I haven't seen. The top 4 (Marcus, Hebron, RR, and FloMo) should be very tight. A few thoughts on Hebron: Holy CRAP they're playing a ridiculously large amount of notes. Right now some of the super difficult technical passages don't seem entirely locked in, but by San Antonio and Grand Nationals this show will be a monster. Last year my favorite soloist was the Leander clarinet player, but this year it may be Hebron's tenor saxophonist. The ballad has a big tenor sax solo and he or she is just killing it. It's emotional and technically insane, ending on a super high altissimo note that very few saxophone players at the high school level could even dream of pulling off. I have no idea where Hebron gets all of these insane woodwind players. I also personally like this show more than world of wonder - the music GE is top notch. If I had to guess how the top 4 bands will end up with 2 weeks of cleaning: Music - Marcus/Hebron Visual - Round Rock GE - Hebron 1. Hebron 2. Marcus 3. Round Rock 4. Flower Mound Bell could also be in this mix, but we'll see. Also, Wakeland is my dark horse for this competition - they're doing spectacularly.

I don't see what's so offensive about his post. Even if I disagree with parts of it (which I do), I don't think he was out of line and he at least had the decency to admit his own biases. I see much worse posts on a near daily basis over on the MFA forums and occasionally on here. Anyway, if I had to break down each of the judging categories for BOA Austin for these groups: Music Performance (top 3 are close): 1. Cedar Park 2. Vandegrift 3. Leander 4. Vista Ridge Visual Performance: Too close for me to tell Music GE: 1. Vandegrift 2. Leander (very close 2nd) 3. Cedar Park 4. Vista Ridge Visual GE: 1. Leander 2. Vandegrift 3. Vista Ridge 4. Cedar Park Final Rankings: 1. Leander 2. Vandegrift 3. Cedar Park 4. Vista Ridge I believe all 4 will solidly be in finals at BOA Austin. I also could see Vandegrift really dominating with that show later in the season.

Vandegrift:

The second movement of CTJ's show from last week's game. Starts around 4:40:

It's not much, but you can find some of The Woodlands' show in this video:

Goodness, Leander. I think it's going to be tough for any group to wrestle away the GE caption from them in 2 weeks. My only concern is what might be a bit of an overuse of scatter drill, but I do think it works well for the opening hit. Here's Vista Ridge: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-U4rgHKLyLw I'm really impressed with Vista. They're executing some very hard drill exceptionally well. I don't think it would be crazy for them to land in the top 5 at BOA Austin.

1. Bowie 2. Round Rock 3. Leander 4. Vandegrift 5. Cedar Park 6. Vista Ridge 7. Dripping Springs 8. Hendrickson 9. Cedar Ridge 10. Westlake I feel confident in the top 3, just not the order. Bowie seems to be the safe pick here though. I've no idea what's going on with Round Rock but they've performed very well the last two years at BOA Austin. Leander has cool stuff in their show but I'm wondering if it'll be as visually stunning as last year. I'm then fairly confident in 4-6 being the remaining LISD schools. Depending on how Vandy and CP do, I could see Vista possibly cracking into the top 5. 7-10 I'm not confident in. Dripping Springs performed at what was, in my opinion, a Grand National Finalist level last year so I'm putting them at 7. I'm also dropping Cedar Ridge down since they lost a ton of their staff. They were an amazing program with a bright future, but I'm scared they're just going to sizzle out. They had what I'd consider one of the most drastic improvements in BOA history (25th in 2012 San Antonio prelims -> 5th in 2013 GN semi-finals) but I'm really nervous they're going to "pull a Ronald Reagan/Lake Park/PCEP/Churchill" and drop placements at competitions very quickly.

Lafayette is a 2-time grand national finalist. I could see them landing in the top 4 with SFA, Richland, and Friendswood.

Flower Mound is really impressive. I wish the sound was better on the video but even at this point I think I'm going to say I like their show better than last year's. The music is interesting and there's a lot of movement in the drill too. The occasional park-and-blow of course, but I can forgive a few of those. The Arlington regional will not be the cut-and-dried Hebron/Marcus champion we're used to I don't think. If Round Rock and LD Bell put out a good product this year too, I could see the top 5 coming very close. Maybe we'll even see a new regional champ. On that note, does anyone have any reviews of groups we aren't lucky enough to view on youtube (or really just any band viewed live for that matter)? Marcus, Round Rock, LD Bell, Cedar Ridge, The Woodlands, Bowie, Keller Central, etc?

I read a rumor that you guys were planning on signing up for nationals, is that true?

Flower Mound: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjF3DQDUGnE Keller:

Claudia Taylor Johnson (backfield unfortunately): Hebron: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lb4_f98v0PU Johnson's drill is looking insane. Obviously you can't really hear what they're playing but they're really pushing the visual envelope on this one, and it looks pretty good for only being August 28th. I think they're going to be tough to beat by the time San Antonio rolls around. Are the rumors true they dropped out of UIL in order to exceed 8 hours a week? Hebron's show is very... Hebron. That's all I really have to say about it. Insane musical technique but probably what I'd consider a safe visual design. They know how to play to their strengths though.

Hebron: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzaJ1JPGxH8 Westlake:

Looks like Leander had theirs tonight as well. They don't seem to be too restrictive on video uploads, so hopefully that'll get posted in the near future.

Storylines: I think the 3 Lewisville ISD schools will be scoring closer together more than last year. Marcus and Hebron were already pretty close but I can see Flower Mound threatening their monopoly on gold and silver at BOA Arlington. I think there will be some flip flopping. I think Round Rock's trajectory will be interesting to watch. I feel like the past two years they've done exceptionally well at BOA Austin but then kind of stagnate by the time San Antonio rolls around. And of course in 2013's case, they jumped ahead a crazy amount in quality for grand nats. I'm wondering if this trend will be the same for next year, or the new varsity band structure will help (or possibly hurt) them. Predictions: - Flower Mound beats either Hebron or Marcus in a BOA preliminary round - The best shows come from bands not attending Grand Nats - 2 Lewisville ISD schools medal in SA prelims, but none medal in finals - Johnson and Leander have the 2 best designs of the year - Bowie's show is lackluster, but performed to near perfection - Hebron dominates in music and music GE at GN, but is bottom half for visual and visual GE - One Keller ISD school comes in 12th at nats, but the other in unlucky 13th - Cedar Ridge misses one BOA finals but makes it at another - Reagan and Bell both take medals home from.... somewhere

I'm waiting for the day that Plano Senior and Plano West start kicking their marching programs up a notch. The Plano schools each send around 7-10 all-staters out of a very competitive TMEA Area C every year so it's not like they're lacking in quality players. I honestly don't see why these two put such little emphasis on marching when there's quite a talent base and the marchers are all juniors and seniors. I also would like to see PESH attend more BOA regionals than just San Antonio every year. I feel like they could make Conroe finals most seasons if they attended so long as the lineup isn't absolutely stacked.

Whenever a head band director leaves an already well established program like Reagan, it always makes me wonder what it took to draw them away.

Leander HS "Choral Works" Here's the opener:

Sugar Land, it's on their calendar. I also predict Claudia Taylor Johnson will sweep the McAllen regional with at least a solid 7-8 point differential between them and the 2nd place band. Wouldn't be surprised to see it be over 10 points (unless a band like Reagan decides to sign up). My regional champion picks are: Austin: James Bowie McAllen: CTJ Conroe: CTJ Arlington: Hebron San Antonio: CTJ (My next pick would be The Woodlands) Grand Nats: The Woodlands (Their best show yet?) Boring and predictable haha. Hopefully some typiclally underestimated band will jump ahead of the pack the way Leander did this year (which always makes things way more exciting).