Football 🏈 Halftime Shows

[Vandy_Insider]

 

 

[Tubalord11]

1 hour ago, LeanderMomma said:

I watched that one yesterday. I love the enthusiasm of the person filming it. 😂

I know!!! They do look and sound amazing though, really entertaining show and they seem so motivated for Nats! 

[WeLoveBand]

53 minutes ago, Vandy_Insider said:

 

 

No props?

[Vandy_Insider]

7 minutes ago, WeLoveBand said:

No props?

Not yet, there are front-drops and potentially back-drops this year. And of course your gonna have swing flags during the ballad and final hit. There are also some infinity props vision is dancing with in movement two. Should get a first look at movement 3 this week. If anything new happens or develops i'll edit and add more.

[WeLoveBand]

23 minutes ago, Vandy_Insider said:

Not yet, there are front-drops and potentially back-drops this year. And of course your gonna have swing flags during the ballad and final hit. There are also some infinity props vision is dancing with in movement two. Should get a first look at movement 3 this week. If anything new happens or develops i'll edit and add more.

Oh okay

[Thanos]

7 hours ago, Vandy_Insider said:

 

 

Who are the students on the far left?

[Nny14]

59 minutes ago, Thanos said:

Who are the students on the far left?

Alternates. Usually freshman that couldn't get a spot, so they march a make shift drill block early in the season to gain some experience, but it eventually goes away.

[ChristopherRoden]

Castle: WOW I was not expecting that!! Super exciting show and performed at a much higher level than recent years. I think it’s the buy in. The individuals seem to like this show a lot.

Avon: Alright, yeah.. my qualm is that the box props are the only indication (with maybe flag colors) of any sort of “Mondriesque”. A bit disappointing visually compared to last year so far, but it’s very early yet. 
 

Carmel: what. This looks like a different echelon of band entirely than they’re used to competing in. The pacing is really uninspiring and for a show about arcs there are an awful lot of blocks and VERY few arc sets… they sound fine but nothing to write home about. 

[Thanos]

1 hour ago, Nny14 said:

Alternates. Usually freshman that couldn't get a spot, so they march a make shift drill block early in the season to gain some experience, but it eventually goes away.

That's really cool! Even if it's only for a little bit, that's awesome. It looks like they're having a fun time as well!

[nightlife]

27 minutes ago, ChristopherRoden said:

Castle: WOW I was not expecting that!! Super exciting show and performed at a much higher level than recent years. I think it’s the buy in. The individuals seem to like this show a lot.

Avon: Alright, yeah.. my qualm is that the box props are the only indication (with maybe flag colors) of any sort of “Mondriesque”. A bit disappointing visually compared to last year so far, but it’s very early yet. 
 

Carmel: what. This looks like a different echelon of band entirely than they’re used to competing in. The pacing is really uninspiring and for a show about arcs there are an awful lot of blocks and VERY few arc sets… they sound fine but nothing to write home about. 

 I was pretty disappointed by Avon and Carmel. Looking at Carmel’s rehearsal calendar from 2022, they rehearse an extra 15+ days for 6-8 hours in the summer. And then on regular rehearsal weeks they rehearse anywhere from 9 hours to 16 hours a week. This probably ends up being on average 5 more hours/ week than Texas groups are allowed to rehearse + the summer rehearsals. If we say the marching season is 10 weeks long that’s at least 120 extra hours of rehearsal compared to TX bands by end of season. This equates to 15 regular UIL-allowed 8hr rehearsal weeks. 
Make of that what you will. I, for one, would love to see what some TX bands would cook up with 15 extra weeks. Or what Indiana bands would look like under UIL rules. 

[Thanos]

42 minutes ago, ChristopherRoden said:

Carmel: what. This looks like a different echelon of band entirely than they’re used to competing in. The pacing is really uninspiring and for a show about arcs there are an awful lot of blocks and VERY few arc sets… they sound fine but nothing to write home about. 

I've never been much of a Carmel fan especially these past couple of years, but I do really like them a lot this year. They're show design is really selling it to me right now!

[tubapop]

Where are yall seeing the Carmel show?

[BDC]

13 hours ago, LeanderMomma said:

I watched that one yesterday. I love the enthusiasm of the person filming it. 😂

Loved hearing that too. They just performed parts 2, 3, and 4 with obvious electronics issues.  

[packwick]

Carmel looks fine, tho i thought they were Brownsburg at first bc they have lots of the same set piece allll over the field. actually maaaybe more like P-land's guard show from last season w/ the half moons. doing lots of the same stuff w/ them, rocking them back and forth and tossing over them, etc. super detailed and layered visual program, creative, maybe a lil busy, musically similar to last few yrs where they just take a single piece and give you the full tour of it. guard is excellent, imma say 2nd place bc they're cleaner than Avon rn. band demonstrates strong control of the form for Sept. music could use work but sounds pretty typical for them at this point in the season.

Brownsburg is strong, performers are outstanding, but very much feels like a standard Cartwright show. there just doesn't seem to be much motivation to try new things from this design team, bc this particular style keeps getting rewarded.

[Rubisco]

33 minutes ago, packwick said:

Carmel looks fine, tho i thought they were Brownsburg at first bc they have lots of the same set piece allll over the field.

My first thought was, "That's a lot of stuff on the field for Carmel!"

I think it's a strong start. Their approach to music design/pacing is very interesting again.

[Rubisco]

7 hours ago, nightlife said:

 I was pretty disappointed by Avon and Carmel. Looking at Carmel’s rehearsal calendar from 2022, they rehearse an extra 15+ days for 6-8 hours in the summer. And then on regular rehearsal weeks they rehearse anywhere from 9 hours to 16 hours a week. This probably ends up being on average 5 more hours/ week than Texas groups are allowed to rehearse + the summer rehearsals. If we say the marching season is 10 weeks long that’s at least 120 extra hours of rehearsal compared to TX bands by end of season. This equates to 15 regular UIL-allowed 8hr rehearsal weeks. 
Make of that what you will. I, for one, would love to see what some TX bands would cook up with 15 extra weeks. Or what Indiana bands would look like under UIL rules. 

That extra rehearsal time also allows them to take on more complex visual programs than what we see from most, if not all, Texas programs. This is part of the reason why I take early videos of Avon and Carmel with a grain of salt, because they have the rehearsal time to clean those complex programs and make major adjustments, if needed. So, they might not seem so impressive right now, but by late season... 👀

[ChristopherRoden]

1 hour ago, Rubisco said:

That extra rehearsal time also allows them to take on more complex visual programs than what we see from most, if not all, Texas programs. This is part of the reason why I take early videos of Avon and Carmel with a grain of salt, because they have the rehearsal time to clean those complex programs and make major adjustments, if needed. So, they might not seem so impressive right now, but by late season... 👀

I really don’t think their visual programs are any more complex than any of the top 20 Texas visual programs, sorry. 

edit: 

Last year and the year before, yes. Avon especially had a stunning visual program compared to top Texas groups. This year, after watching their show, and most of the highest tier Texas bands, I could not find one visual moment that a Texas band isn’t doing something similar to at the exact same level. 

Even the amount of difficult visual moments is very comparable. 
Carmel is the same story but the past few years have really not been anything special visually. 

[LeanderMomma]

6 hours ago, BDC said:

Loved hearing that too. They just performed parts 2, 3, and 4 with obvious electronics issues.  

It wouldn’t be Leander without electronics issues. 🥴

I hope all the kids just take it in stride and keep working on themselves, trying to get a little better each and every day. We fans don’t expect perfection!  We just want to see the kids performing well and enjoying themselves. After all…#itsjustband. 😉

[packwick]

1 hour ago, Rubisco said:

That extra rehearsal time also allows them to take on more complex visual programs than what we see from most, if not all, Texas programs. This is part of the reason why I take early videos of Avon and Carmel with a grain of salt, because they have the rehearsal time to clean those complex programs and make major adjustments, if needed. So, they might not seem so impressive right now, but by late season... 👀

ppl get so salty about the rehearsal stuff, but i think the fact that TX bands keep up so well despite the obvious handicap is a big feather in their cap.

53 minutes ago, ChristopherRoden said:

This year, after watching their show, and most of the highest tier Texas bands, I could not find one visual moment that a Texas band isn’t doing something similar to at the exact same level.

so, if you look at stuff from multiple shows from tx and compare it to one Avon show, then there's no difference? lol. not sure that's a fair comparison. personally, i don't think the complexity or difficult gap is big, not as big as several yrs ago for sure, but im also hard pressed to think of a band out of tx that has the same degree of layering, detailing, simultaneous demands, advanced choreo, and world class guard skills in one package.

and if Avon's and Carmel's vis programs weren't so special, they wouldn't be winning those captions constantly.

[Rubisco]

I was wrong about Tomball Memorial's design team. Drill is by Greg Dalton. Music is arranged by Brandon Smith, no longer Richard Saucedo. They sound good!

[ChristopherRoden]

54 minutes ago, packwick said:

ppl get so salty about the rehearsal stuff, but i think the fact that TX bands keep up so well despite the obvious handicap is a big feather in their cap.

so, if you look at stuff from multiple shows from tx and compare it to one Avon show, then there's no difference? lol. not sure that's a fair comparison. personally, i don't think the complexity or difficult gap is big, not as big as several yrs ago for sure, but im also hard pressed to think of a band out of tx that has the same degree of layering, detailing, simultaneous demands, advanced choreo, and world class guard skills in one package.

and if Avon's and Carmel's vis programs weren't so special, they wouldn't be winning those captions constantly.

1. I’m saying that just about all of the top tier Texas groups have comparable visual programs. 
2. I simply disagree. And that’s okay! This is a subjective activity and neither of us are judges (as far as I know) so we can both take what we said for what they are: opinions.

[Rubisco]

I opened up a can of off-topic worms, it seems! I am genuinely curious about your perspective, @ChristopherRoden, since your two points taken together seem to suggest that the top 20ish visual programs from Texas are nearly matched to Avon's and Carmel's in those considerations that @packwick mentioned. I feel like even just guard alone makes that stance hard to defend. But then maybe you simply have your own set of considerations? Or value certain ones more strongly than others? You are certainly correct that it's a very subjective activity, even for judges!

[packwick]

well certain POCs i could def concede. i don't think Carmel does as much tricky playing while marching as Hebron or Vandy, for example, esp w/ the fast musical passages that im unsure Carmel could do even standing still. but then in the macro, when Carmel's show picks up, there's sooo much going on at once that i think any band w/ an 8 hr rule would have trouble cleaning it. hence the 12+ hrs a week of practicing, or whatever it is lol. don't think they'd do more than 8 hrs if they didnt have to, unless the staff gets paid by the hour lol.

[BandKid08]

3 hours ago, Rubisco said:

I was wrong about Tomball Memorial's design team. Drill is by Greg Dalton. Music is arranged by Brandon Smith, no longer Richard Saucedo. They sound good!

any video of tomball memorial?

[Rubisco]

1 hour ago, BandKid08 said:

any video of tomball memorial?

I don't know if there's a public one with sound. The one I saw was shared with me in private, so I don't feel comfortable sharing it with others. That's also why I'm being a little skimpy with the details. 😶