knoxisawesome348

So frustrating. I really would have loved to see a 5th band such as North Mesquite make it out of Area C.

I know it goes against instinct to predict a (relative) newcomer to place higher than bands that are always on top, but Leander is looking and sounding far more exceptional than I was expecting. I'm going to go out on a limb and say they beat at least one of everyone's "top 5" (CTJ, Marcus, Bowie, Hebron, The Woodlands). At the very least, I'm willing to bet they are top 6. REALLY wish they had taken this show to nationals, but oh well. Bet they would've taken the class AAA championship. Visually, I'd say they're currently near the top for Texas bands as well. As far as the order of the top 6 goes, I'm still really unsure. Hebron's music performance is incredible and I think they'll take the music caption (and probably win). The Woodlands has a great design that musically is on par with what they had on the field last year in terms of GE. My favorite musical moment of any show I've seen this year is definitely when they play "Everything in its Right Place" by Radiohead. Super cool effect. However, their visual GE has taken a bit of a dip, but not a significant one. I'm honestly a little confused how they placed 3 whole points below CTJ at Conroe, but they're the same band that won a grand national class championship (GN semi-finals) 6 years before they even won their first regional championship, so by november I think they'll be at the top of their game. How Marcus, CTJ, and Bowie place in respect to each other is incredibly difficult to call. They have 3 very different show designs, and are 3 bands with very different strengths. I would hate for any band to be disappointed in their placements, but for one band to move up, one must move down. So that being said (and not having seen videos of Marcus or Bowie since BOA Denton and Austin respectively), my top 6 is now looking a lot like last year for CTJ and Bowie: 1. Hebron 2. The Woodlands 3. Bowie 4. CTJ 5. Leander 6. Marcus

You're right about that. I remember noticing that not even the Round Rock students predicted themselves to place as high as they did for Grand Nats (the highest prediction I remember seeing on the list was 5th place). I also recall that the forums came to a consensus last year that the top 6 at San Antonio would be Marcus, Hebron, LD Bell, CTJ, and The Woodlands no questions asked. Well, 2 of those (the 2 that historically dominated this competition for nearly the past decade at that) ended up coming in 8th and 9th place, so our predictions at a "top 6" this year could easily be just as off. If you had told anyone that Marcus would come in 8th place after scoring a 96.1 the year before you would've been laughed off the forums.

I don't know of any aside from MFA, sorry. But I will say the $40 per year is certainly worth it.

Flower Mound. The whole show is grandiose (I tend to like those types of shows) and the opening with the horns is unbelievable.

My thoughts as of right now (in alphabetical order): * = top 2 in each group Top group (1-6): Bowie CTJ * Hebron * Leander Marcus TWHS Next Group: Cedar Park (I could see them possibly missing finals, but it's not likely) Flower Mound * LD Bell (Wild card) Ronald Reagan (Wild card) * Round Rock Vandegrift Bubble (Pick 2) - obviously I missed some because this list is long Aledo Anderson Berkner Hendrickson Keller Keller Central Plano East Richland Spring * Vista Ridge * Westlake Edit: I should look at the list of who's signed up before posting. Swapped out College Park and Wakeland for Spring and Vista Ridge

I REALLY wish Plano Senior and Plano West would at least participate at area. Someone said in another thread that there are only 25 6A schools in area B which, without Plano or Plano West, will knock it down to 23 (assuming all other bands participate and receive 1s) and only 4 will advance to state. If for whatever reason 4 more bands don't show up, only THREE will make it to state (let's pray that doesn't happen). So basically if I was the director at schools like Plano East, Richland, Flomo, Bell, etc, who are likely right on the edge of the cutoff, I would be begging those directors to take their schools to area again. And as an alum of one of these schools, I wish for personal reasons they would go regardless if more bands would make it to state or not. I don't think Plano West has ever made it to area finals, but I know Plano did back in 2008 and I believe they came in 8th. I'm interested where both of those programs could end up considering the Plano schools tend to dominate (along with the Lewisville ISD schools) in the all-state competition.

I'm assuming for area B it's 25 in total? Because if that's the case, only 4 will advance. Neither Plano Senior nor Plano West participate in area so that'll knock it down to 23.

The MFA videos came out today. I only watched Hebron, Marcus, and Flower Mound, but I think the judges got it right. Flower Mound's GE is unbelievable and was my favorite of the three shows. They took a lot of visual elements from last year (which got them very high visual and visual GE scores in San Antonio) and added more effective music to it. Visually, I think there's a lot of influence from Plymouth Canton's 2001 show and it's working wonderfully. Musically (in terms of general effect), they were my favorite band of the three. Just a whole lot of cool things going on including an amazing horn feature at the beginning (much like Lassiter's 2002 closer). I think they're going to do great down the road and can't wait to see where this show ends up. If they clean it in a style similar to Round Rock last year I think they'll place very well at Grand Nationals.

There always seem to be a bunch of bands that seem to have very odd placements at UIL making it almost impossible to predict. In 2012, Keller came in 11th over bands like Duncanville and Rowlett, just barely missing out on finals. I don't think anyone really expected that. Here is a short list of bands that could slip into finals (among others): -Duncanville (3rd in 2010 and 14th in 2012?) -Rowlett -Keller -Keller Central -Plano East (If they make it out of area B ) -Spring And as far as Round Rock, Cedar Ridge, and Flower Mound go, not one of them is a lock for finals unfortunately. I would probably give Cedar Ridge the edge to making it of the three and then maybe Flower Mound. For Round Rock it'll all depend on whether they sound like they did last year at Grand Nats or not. BOA SA Round Rock was much less clean and had a lot of edge to their sound, while GN Round Rock was much more well blended.

A bit surprising Coppell didn't sweep this competition like usual.

Kennesaw Mountain 2006. The whole show was pretty corny with the constant voiceovers, but when they form the star out of nowhere and have the massive hit... just chills on chills. I also really liked The Woodlands' 2007 ending. Very original show.

Quite an exciting competition. What does everybody think? 9:00 a.m. - Liberty H.S., TX 9:15 a.m. - Azle H.S., TX 9:30 a.m. - Lewisville H.S., TX 9:45 a.m. - Aledo H.S., TX 10:00 a.m. - Keller H.S., TX 10:15 a.m. - Birdville H.S., TX 10:30 a.m. - Legacy H.S., TX 10:45 a.m. - Byron Nelson H.S., TX LUNCH 11:45 a.m. - John H. Guyer H.S., TX 12:00 p.m. - Keller Central H.S., TX 12:15 p.m. - Richland H.S., TX 12:30 p.m. - Flower Mound H.S., TX 12:45 p.m. - Lake Highlands H.S., TX 1:00 p.m. - Marcus H.S., TX 1:15 p.m. - James Martin H.S., TX 1:30 p.m. - Wakeland H.S., TX BREAK 2:15 p.m. - Mansfield H.S., TX 2:30 p.m. - Haltom H.S., TX 2:45 p.m. - Waxahachie H.S., TX 3:00 p.m. - Centennial H.S., TX 3:15 p.m. - L.V. Berkner H.S., TX 3:30 p.m. - L.D. Bell H.S., TX 3:45 p.m. - Coppell H.S., TX 4:00 p.m. - Hebron H.S., TX 4:15 p.m. - Preliminary Competition Ends; Exhibition: University of North Texas Marching Band 4:30 p.m. - PRESENTATION OF AWARDS 6:30 p.m. - GATES OPEN for Finals 7:00 p.m. - National Anthem 7:15 p.m. - Finals Competition Begins

Unless I'm mistaken, Wakeland won't be going to this competition since BOA Austin is the same day.

Xenon, what were your thoughts on Hebron and Marcus?

I'm always surprised at how The Woodlands places at UIL. At BOA SA in 2012 they were significantly ahead in the performance captions than every other band except Marcus, and they tied for visual. Yet when they got to state they came in 10th in preliminaries and 6th in finals. I understand it's a different style of judging, BUT I would figure the music ensemble performance and visual ensemble performance scores at BOA would have been reflective of UIL judging. Guess not. With this being said I think they have a good chance at medaling, but if history is any indicator they may place unexpectedly low (meaning not medaling but still in finals). I think Hebron and Marcus will be top two but I think Coppell will be a super strong contender and could see them medaling. They won music performance in prelims in Denton and SA and I think they won the individual music caption in both rounds of both competitions. They tend to do super well in UIL in general.

Does anybody know if Cedar Ridge is having a singer in their show again this year?

Finals placements are so incredibly difficult to predict for this regional. There are 5 grand national finalists attending that have made it since 2010 + vandegrift (would have also made it last year imo), westlake, leander, and some others. My finalist predictions in order: 1) James Bowie - They're consistently the strongest group early on and beat every one of these bands at SA last year. Their tendency to be clean right out of the gate makes me believe that they'll win Austin again this year. 2) Round Rock - Almost winning both performance captions in GN semi-finals last year bodes well, but I'm not sure if that'll translate to an early season win. They certainly have the potential, but they were the definition of late-peaking last year so I think they'll slide in at 2nd and perhaps snag a caption. 3) Cedar Ridge - 5th in GN semi-finals last year also bodes well for this group. They placed 8th at BOA Austin last year but 3rd at Conroe (+music cap.) so I'm not sure how they'll do. They're one of the top groups in Texas for music performance in my opinion but they also peaked late last year. They improve enormous amounts each season and I think that trend will continue. (Nearly positive they'll win BOA SoCal.) 4) Vandegrift - Last year was Vandegrift's year for sure. Music at SA and 4A state champion, Vandegrift's only issue now is their director change. Of course they may place higher, and could even win, but it all depends how clean they are by this point. They typically are pretty strong at the start of the season compared to some of these other groups. 5) Cedar Park - They're already looking better than last year, and last year they still did very well. They have the potential to steal class AAA away from Vandegrift. 6) Westlake - They made SA finals and placed 6th at Austin last year as well. I think they'll do decently well, but could potentially fall below bands like Reagan or Leander. 7) Ronald Reagan - Their 7th place finish at Conroe last year makes me think they'll have a slow start again. By San Antonio they'll probably be as strong as ever, but Austin is a very early regional. 8) Leander - I've seen some videos from their show and I really enjoy it. They're using the same music that Avon did last year in their opener, and being the first band out of finals at SA last year, I think they're going to place pretty well. 9) Anderson - They placed 7th last year at Austin above Cedar Ridge, so they have the capability to do some damage. 10) Vista Ridge - Their bronze medal at UIL last year makes me think that they'll squeak in at #10. Of course, this spot could easily go to a number of other groups. Other potential finalists: - Pflugerville - Wakeland - Southwest - Hendrickson - James E. Taylor - Connally

Other than San Antonio and maybe Indianapolis or Atlanta, I would call this the most competitive BOA regional.

It's a bit of a stretch, but you can hear the Flower Mound band starting at around 1:36:00 (it starts a little before this but the announcers stop talking around this point). Sounds like a much more intense show musically than last year. Same channel, but this time for Hebron (and a more recent video). The announcers do not shut up for this one. It starts at 1:41:30 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCdmhnDMuzY&list=UUL1TLfLiW0N0RoxHAX7e1TQ&index=8

I'm very impressed with James Martin so far. I think making finals in St. Louis could be a reality for them.

Cedar Park is looking very solid

Could somebody please post the videos of Hebron? I'm unable to find them.

Could the results from Duncanville and the Gator Music Festival be entered? Also, could the remaining Area B predictions be removed since there is already another one with entered results? These will finalize results, rankings, and whatnot.

You guys are making something out of nothing. Neither my nor Rubisco's comments, as I explained earlier, are meant to diminish any accomplishment the Round Rock (I'm assuming you guys are from Round Rock, but either way it doesn't matter) Band has made this season. When your band places in the bottom half at San Antonio, it is not people's first instinct to automatically assume you will finish in the top third of Grand Nationals. Did you guys deserve your amazing placement at nats? Of course. But if the rest of the bands that had attended San Antonio that had finished ahead of the Grand Nats attendees had actually gone to Indy as well, I would have guessed (before the actual competition) that they would place higher. Would they have actually placed higher? Maybe and maybe not. We won't ever know. When you predict finalist locks, you typically choose the bands with higher scores throughout the season and higher scores historically. Hebron, CTJ, and Bowie all had those this season. It's no disrespect, but a process of extrapolation as well as a bit of opinion mixed in. An example of disrespect would be repetitive negative comments about your band, but nobody has come even close to saying things like that. Everyone has shown you guys an outpouring of admiration. Remember, when you are on the internet, you are a representative of your band - keep that in mind right now.