Bonelife

Now those placements are a little surprising whether you agree with them or not.

Also gave Westlake a standing ovation at Region. Real great people.

I believe so, but I won't be sure if we get to see placements until tomorrow. I'll get back to you if we learn. Thanks! It has gone much smoother than I originally thought. Only one of the new ones was completely unaffiliated with our program, our marching director. One graduated from here about ten years back (so knows our head director) and the other worked with middle school percussion.

Yeah! Our directors were talking about how pumped they got the judges when they talked with them about all the stuff we were going to add after BoA Austin. I think they said we'll add like 12 or 13 more visuals. I don't know if that will actually happen, but we'll shoot for it.

Thanks! It's a very different band, with a new drillwriter and 3 new directors.You're right about the props! We've got a great group of people that help with them, which kind of help tie in to the vague theme. Hopefully we can build up that sound, because that's something we've always been proud of, and it seems to be suffering thing year what with us losing music to Westwood at Vista Ridge. We're hoping to add a lot of visuals in the next few weeks, so the show should get a lot more interesting.

Westlake also didn't make finals at BoA Austin last year and went on to place 12 at BoA San Antonio and 11 at UIL 6A state. We're big on the late season cleaning.

Awesome! That was a great year for our program. Makes for some good audio, that's for sure.

A nice timelapse-y video of the competition:

Finally, good video of Westlake:

Wow! That sounds like a lot Texas bands could go and take the championship. Wagner's great, but they didn't place in San Antonio finals that year. Does anyone know where they placed in prelims?

That would be awesome! Maybe the premiere marching festival for Central Texas (~30 years ago) can become a big small band contest.

Anyone know if there was a specific reason for Bowie not to go? I was told last year that they weren't going because of the London trip. Kinda disappointed at the number of bands and lack of really big names like RR or Bowie. The WMF website claims that anywhere from "18 to 50" bands have attended in its history. Hope we're not breaking records!

Yeah, I know there's been a history of that. Last year, Westlake was coming off not making BoA Austin finals and Area was our first chance to redeem ourselves. Westwood was one of the first bands announced as getting into finals and pretty much all of us thought they were saying Westlake. Then they announced us last. That was a tense couple of minutes.

I don't know if we (Westlake) are planning on adding in our last movement but either way our plan is a far better product than Austin. I believe our director said "I'm okay with the quality of the performance we put out today, but I would not be okay if we put out that quality of performance ever again". All about the upward trajectory! Speaking of an upward trajectory, we got to see y'all's golf show last year and it was a lot of fun. I don't doubt at all that Westwood won't keep on getting better and I'm excited to see the show that you guys are putting on the field on Saturday. That's especially funny that we both have Kingfishers in our stuff. Seems like Mackey's music comes up everywhere. Best of luck and may the best west win.

Bowie with 4th? Wow! Great job for everyone but I'm particularly impressed with the top three. Glad Westlake isn't the only one feeling a little early season slump, not gonna lie. It happens, I guess.

Believe me, we're stressing a little bit about what Westwood could do.

Unfortunately whoever's taking video for the Westlake band this year has kind of been focusing on panning around to individual people so the video we've gotten is kinda crappy. Skip to the four minute mark for our performance from last night against Austin High which includes our second movement:

Thanks! I'll try and remember that! Man, I knew it was their first time at SA, but any BOA events? Holy crap! That's really impressive. I can't wait to see where they are a few years from now.

Just to say real quick: Westlake still hasn't really started our third movement. We're gunning for all four by BoA Austin. Not sure what pace other bands are going at, but we're gonna have a lot of fun in the next two weeks. Also not that relevant (I just feel like I need to mention it somewhere on this forum) but we've been invited to the 2017 Rose Bowl. I believe we last attended in 2003. We're all riding a pretty stoked hype train right now. BoA Austin should determine if it keeps on chugging along. I'm really interested to see where Westwood, Cedar Ridge, Vista Ridge, and Leander land. Especially Vista Ridge who is looking amazing this year. Was last year their first time making finals at San Antonio? Because you can hardly tell from the video. Whether they're moving or standing still they're rocking it.

I like Westlake's show, but we don't do well early season. If we do make finals, probably 9th or 10th. I'd say Bowie wins, with RR and Leander close behind (In that order).

What is a competing school seeing a school's schow going to do? I can't see how knowing another school's weaknesses or strengths can be capitalized on in such an activity as marching band.

Thanks! I think the directors and just everyone in the program is happy with the year's direction. Just wait till you see Lacrimosa.

It went great for Westlake! We just finished putting the opener on the field a few days ago (our usual speed) and we were all happy with our run through. Just have to learn all of the second movement before Friday! Also we beat Southlake, which I find noteworthy. Our QB is a beast. Varsity QB Sophomore year, and just committed to UT going into his Junior. Here's the best video I could find of us. It's kinda pixel-y: EDIT: Here's another video. Better video quality, worse angle, and worse audio. Hopefully next week we'll have a better recording. Skip to 2:40 for beginning.

Westlake has an indoor concert today. Just some stand tunes and first two movements of show. Will post video once it goes up.

After a few days of work on Westlake's show I'm actually pretty excited for this year. It could either go really well or really badly. The drill we've gone through in the opener is way better than previous years (We got a new drill writer, I think the same one that works with Flower Mound) and our new marching instructor is moving us along faster. The music sounds great, too. Here are the music files for our first two movements: https://soundcloud.com/brandon-li-16/westlake-medea-kingfishers-4-22-15bk-1