nightlife

I cannot be the only one who is so fed up with Carmel. They were the band who I was least “generally effect”ed by in ALL of semis. I’m so over it. They performed just fine, but if that’s not the most boring show in finals… by FAR. Texas is pushing the activity musically and GE wise, and if they had more time to explore visual they absolutely would be pushing there too. rant over.. for now. See ya next season!

it’s just so formulaic these days. give me an emoji and 3 overplayed pieces of music and I gotchu 🫡 🦊: The Quick Brown Fox 🌲: Amongst the Arbor ⭐️: Starstruck 🥭: A Tropical Escape

Okay so it looks like we’ll have probably at least 3 Cartwright shows in finals. I cannot personally stand the design, but each band performing those shows is doing so extremely extremely well, so kudos to the staff and performers for that! As for the design… these shows lack emotion, story, diversity, etc. It seems like they pick an Emoji with one or two colors and build a show around that. And it only seems to work with larger bands. Block here, curvilinear there, pods there, etc. Pearland: 🌕 brownsburg: 🪈 Mason: ✨ Prosper: 🇨🇱 broken arrow: ➰ Bentonville: 🌻 Honorable mentions: Pearland 2022: 🦄 broken arrow 2019: 🤠 Prosper 2022: 🪑 I will, however, reiterate that the kids and the staff are doing WONDERFUL things with their shows and each of the aforementioned bands moves and plays like the top bands they are

Be quick v2 👀 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xF9Bvmkz43kaHbuQYnhF6UHJeQjWQBeN/view?usp=drivesdk

My current rankings: Pearland Wylie Reagan Bell CTJ Round Rock Coppell Cy-Fair Timber Creek Cy Woods Prosper Waxahachie Lake Travis Tompkins Wylie East Klein Oak College Park Haltom Dickinson JBA Pebble Hills Coronado Midland

Rankings thus far: Wylie Reagan Bell CTJ Coppell Timber Creek Prosper Tompkins Wylie East Klein Oak College Park Haltom Dickinson JBA Pebble Hills Midland

To the kids watching: none of the negatives are a critique on you, rather the program and its coordinators.

No yeah I do think that this will lead to some very interesting results for both of these schools. At least it should… I could name 5 Houston and 10 Dallas “bubble” bands that sound and march better. makes you wonder what anonymous performances would do to the final ranking…

Whattttt no bell?? they should invite them and Marcus ?!

It may sound harder as of right now because of the difference in musical clarity. Good for them! Would love to see a tie for 5th to allow for 6 bands to state!

I felt like 7L was struggling with their music book the last few times I heard them. Has that improved? Vertical alignment and timing were their main issues and it seemed like the drum majors and the drum line were constantly fighting for tempo/downbeats. It’s a tough show musically. Bold considering how little content is weighted at area.

Katy and cinco were solid at their football games yesterday. Still noticed some of the same things from this past weekend but a lot has improved! jordan sounded big, nice good wall of sound and very pure. Drill has cleaned up a ton too, timing was tight. JET felt static but still a great showing. Looking fwd to Saturday

After BOA prosper: bell. is. back. I could totally see them winning this area. Their show is much more geared towards UIL than I feel like coppell’s is. Love coppells show but it feels wayyyy more BOA and gimmicky timber creek and Keller central will be fighting for 3rd!

I bet these ordinals will be ALL over the place, probably some ties to be broken!

I loved LTs show. I do worry about vista being clean enough to win it. Vandy imo is still cleaner, last I saw!

I totally agree… thinking back to 2018 it’ll probably be: Cy Woods misses finals, bridgeland last in to state, katy winning the area decisively, Cy fair in 8th and Cy Tree (a cy school yet unbuilt) in 2nd!

True actually, however, watching how these groups have cleaned in the last week before area, I stand by my predictions

I think the only 3 locks to state are Cy Woods, Cy Fair, and Bridgeland. Cy fair is a STUNNER this year. They have such an exciting show and they're performing the heck out of it. They are playing well, clearly, and aggressively. Same goes for their marching. I've thoroughly enjoyed the past 2 shows from them and I look forward to their success! Design wise both Bridgeland and 7L are musically being held back (for now?) by the difficulty of their books. I love the writing but there are some uncharacteristic sounds, balance issues and timing issues in both of them. Cy woods and 7L seem to be dirty visually. Cy woods more so at the end of their show, new closer it seems. They'll be fine. Shockingly though, 7L still has spacing issues, foot timing issues, undefined and unrefined visuals. The content is certainly there but as of this past weekend there wasn't a noticeable improvement between BOA Katy and Katy Marching. I like both of their concepts though, but I think 7L is definitely more BOA focused with a UIL color palette. Katy has a complete package. They're performing their music and visual quite well. Perhaps not perfectly, but they'll get there I bet. Just a bit of dirt in the feet and sound at times. I also wish there were more dynamics in their music. Whenever everyone is playing it's just always a FF. Nothing more, nothing less. Their drill isn't super exposed or varied in my opinion so I expect to see that cleaned up by Saturday. I must say though, their soloists are FANTASTIC. Kudos to them! Jordan had a huge glow up from last year. Regardless of their early season BOA results, they have vastly improved. They have a much bigger and refined sound, and although their drill may be written a bit close together, they're performing it quite well. Everyone seems to be on the same page and marches and does choreo exactly like each other. I love the music book and I especially love how varied the music and the drill is. Blocks, circles, curvilinears, no 2 pages look the same by any stretch of the imagination. Music wise, they have the emotion, the technical and the dynamics that I know UIL looks for. Tompkins and JET are wildcards for me. They've been close all season, and close to Jordan. Tompkins just has a super bright sound for me, shrill at times and hard to listen to at others. However, they're super tight visually and they do have their good musical moments. (beginning of the opener when the brass comes in for example). JET seems to be a step down from last year. It may the placement of the props but I dont get a sense of visual clarity. The peg legged technique is creating a lot of bounce and you can definitely hear that in their sound when they play on the move. They have a very rich sound, especially in the WWs but I'm not hearing nearly the musical clarity that I am from other groups. JV and Cinco Ranch are also seemingly a step down from last year. Both seem to be doing easier shows and are less aggressive on the field. Both look good and sound fine but I'm missing that shine that you need to do really well in finals here. I haven't seen Cy Ranch or Langham so I can't speak to them. That all being said I predict the following: 1. Cy Fair 2. Cy Woods 3. Bridgeland 4. Jordan 5. Katy ----------------- 6. Tompkins 7. Seven Lakes 8. JET 9. Cinco Ranch 10. Langham Creek

I think Pearland, Dawson, Austin and Clements have the cleanest shows of this area. Who knows if the judges will agree come Saturday or not. Dickinson and Pasadena Memorial are right on their tails, I'm curious to see how much name will play into results...

I can see some up and coming houston based groups cause an upset

Clear winner? With ordinals 2,3,3,3,1?

This should happen to the area E judge for clearly favoring Pearland so much so that they made others pay for it...

Really? And 9th was just low enough to put them in second if my math is correct? Hmmm... Pearland performed very well but after seeing both, I personally think that other runs had more energy, namely Brazoswood and Clements. I'm in no way saying that theyre a bad band by any means. I just think that others outperformed them. And based on the ordinals of the first 4 judges, they agree. I digress, area placements dont matter as long as you get to state.

Clements was dropped by one judge at Area E and would’ve been champions if not for the one score. It seems that their drill is much more effective and achievable than the last time around. Besides some minor very fixable visual things, they should certainly be up there. If not finals, closer than ever.