BOA San Antonio Finals Results

[chickora]

  Fata1 said:

Marching band is considered a fine art elective if I'm not mistaken. Bands like Bell and Marcus are taking their immense marching and musical skill and using them to bring out the fine art aspect. You could take away the theatrical part of their shows and they would still be able to throw down an amazing performance.

I agree with you.

Plus, in my opinion, I love bands that entertain. I can't stand military style bands because they don't quite hold my attention.

Theatrical productions? So what, they still play musically..and its intrigues the judges...Isn't that what a band wants?

[Fata1]

  Steeldrum said:

Does anyone know if streaming videos are available at Music for All for all prelim shows from San Antonio with a premium membership?

Not from San Antonio yet. They should be at some point. They have the Atlanta and St. Louis competitions up.

[Xenon]

  Fata1 said:

Not from San Antonio yet. They should be at some point. They have the Atlanta and St. Louis competitions up.

Including prelims??? I thought those were just Finals.

[Fata1]

  Xenon said:

Including prelims??? I thought those were just Finals.

No, never mind. I didn't read his original post correctly. I missed the prelims part. It's just finals.

[oDesign]

Where can we see how all us bands that didnt make finals placed? lol.

 

Im really interested see how my school (Langham) placed at a BOA contest, especially since we got such a late start this season with drill (ha. if you saw our show, you can definatly tell too. DIRTY!). This was the first BOA contest for everyone in our program, except the seniors. It was a really good experience for us.

Edited November 5, 2007 by oDesign

[Xenon]

Full Recaps will be available on Monday.

[bluebellbrass07]

  royfjord said:

Well, sorry, but I did. In my opinion, LD Bell was completely robbed out of 1st place.

 

 

I agree with you. Just find a better way to say it next time

[JediSaxSolis]

Man...what a weekend. Just got back about an hour ago.

 

First, I'm going to say this has definitely been the most competitive and awesome marching contest I've ever competed in. I would say it was on an even higher level than last year's UIL 5A State Marching Contest.

 

I had loads of fun. Sure, a lot of the time was spent marching and watching bands, but getting to relax in downtown SA today was awesome, too.

 

As for Finals results, I'm not going to get into that. I really didn't feel they were anywhere near accurate (spots 4-10 were inconsistent, in my opinion). Honestly, I thought Colleyville Heritage deserved to be in the top 10, Cedar Park should've placed higher, and where was Coppell? Everyone performed extremely well, but I think several poor judgments were made.

 

Results aside, we had a blast performing our show. The adrenaline rush was unlike any before and we won't be forgetting the performances yesterday anytime soon. There's nothing like looking back and saying that everyone in the group gave it their all. Having that high level of competition between bands is really what makes marching band and BOA stick out to me; which is why I enjoy it so much.

 

I also met several of you at the MeetMe.

 

Great compietition!

[itsstephenyo]

I actually thought the rankings were pretty close to spot on. I would've had Richland above Reagan, but the gap between Reagan and Richland was pretty much insignificant (only .15). That's almost the only change I would've made.

[Clarinet_Lover41]

  itsstephenyo said:

I actually thought the rankings were pretty close to spot on. I would've had Richland above Reagan, but the gap between Reagan and Richland was pretty much insignificant (only .15). That's almost the only change I would've made.

Hey Stephen were u suprised by us??

[takigan]

  MBandMom2008 said:

Sorry it took so long to repsond, but I was cleaning up the coffee that I choked on while reading this!!!

 

Either you are misinformed or uniformed.

 

The level of discipline 30 years ago was nothing compared to today. We practiced about an hour a day before school. It was too hot after school. (That's what we thought - it was in Texas on the asphalt parking lot that bands now spend 2 hours a day in the heat of the day rehearsing on) We were considered one of the top bands of our day, with consistent top scores to prove it and yet there was nothing near the effort as that put in by today's band kids. Ask around to the parents of today's band kids. Many of them were in band back in the day. The ones I've talked to, from all over the country, agree that much more effort is put in today than it was then.

 

Ok....I'll let the self-righteous proverbial coffee-spit thing slide....but you should know there are more proper ways of proclaiming your disagreement with me, sheesh .....I mean, wow, I guess my argument is so retarded there's no way in he.ll it could be correct, right?

 

That aside, this statement, however intended to "inform" me, really doesn't help your argument that much. For starters, it's a well known fact that you don't have to max out the 8 hour rule to be a good band. I'm from Georgetown and in 2000 we went to the 5A State Marching Contest using a 2 hour Monday afternoon rehearsal and a 1 1/2 hour Wednesday afternoon rehearsal....that was it (well, each section had a 45 minute indoor sectional once a week). Bands that rehearse less make better use of that time, and more discipline is necessary. But on the whole I don't see the amount of rehearsal time relating to effort, and if anything less time equals more effort because you have to produce the same quality of show as someone rehearsing more time. Second of all, I wouldn't say afternoon rehearsal trends are a recent thing.....each school had their own way of doing it and still does.

 

The main issue is I don't view the shows of today as being necessarily more difficult than the shows of yesterday. I mean yeah, kids these days have to crawl around on the ground, flap their arms around, jump up and down and march some chaotic drill......the shows are dirtier (some say) because there's less time being spent on marching and more on all sorts of different elements, I don't consider marching those kinds of shows to be harder than the old style drill. I mean talk to someone who's marched both military and corps style....all the ones I've talked to say that military style is much harder, even though it looks way easier....Parents who grew up military style and never marched in a show like Cy Falls or LD Bell's recent shows watch them and say "Wow, that's SO much harder than what we used to do!".....really it's not, it's much harder to try to look flawless and in-step and carry your horn right than it is to writhe around on the ground like you're in pain. In my college marching show it's very traditional and there's only like 2 places where we actually have a horns down....towards the end of the third movement the playing suffers tremendously because everyone is worn out, it's HARD WORK!.....in a lot of modern shows you have places where the kids put the horns down and do body movements. Having performed in shows with these elements as well, it's a welcome break from the actual "marching" and "playing". I don't care who says it's harder.....having performed in programs with both philosophies, I don't think it is. Take a band with a show with 4 minutes of traditional marching/playing and 4 minutes of drum features, visuals, scatter drill, dancing etc. and compare it to a show by a band of similar skill with 8 minutes of straight marching/playing.....people on this thread keep saying the former actually looks and sounds cleaner....well, it's because only 4 minutes of their show is actually hard, the rest is just component stuff, they can focus 60-70% of their attention on just those 4 minutes and the other 30-40% on the other 4 minutes. In the end, each of their 4 minutes is going to be cleaner than 4 minutes of the other band bc they had less "hard stuff" to pay attention to.

 

And as for the Music Education arguments, I'm already aware of the argument and you might be surprised to find that I do agree with it, I have since I was a little kid (I come from a family of music educators). But the band kids today are dumber than the band kids of old.....they've always been smarter than the non-band kids but with the growth of the entertainment industry, no one escapes decreased interest in education. Band kids are some of the most upstanding, intelligent individuals I know.....but it's gotten harder to find people who prefer reading a book to watching TV, even among band kids.....this was more the opposite back in the old days (ok yeah I wasn't there, but you hear the old people complaining, hehe)....even when I was younger.

 

You know, this is a hard argument to define someone as being right or wrong. There are a ton of variables that haven't even been brought up. Like wealth (could the majority of schools back then afford $10,000 sound systems and props budgets like they can today), increased interest in the activity which creates better design teams for hire and better directors, not to mention the fact that there are at least twice as many band programs now then there were 30 years ago, creating a larger and entirely different playing field. Too many variables.....enough to make multiple threads, and for that matter, if you still want to argue these points, go ahead and PM me and we'll continue it there....

[Steeldrum]

Just got back from San Antonio and chiming in. This was an amazing competition, and the weather in San Antonio couldn't have been more perfect. It would be hard to believe that GN will be any better than this contest. Marcus was stunning and Bell was amazing. I couldn't talk for about 5 minutes after Bell's show, had to compose myself.

 

I don't necessarily agree with all of the finalists but it was such a competitive group of bands I'm not surprised by the results. Really gets down to personal tastes and opinions as to which bands got in and which didn't. I didn't see the Friday prelims but I did see most of Saturdays. Biggest surprise was Coppell not getting in. Their sound was amazing and LOUD.

 

My biggest (only) complaint about the show was the freaking BOA nazis roaming the stands looking for people with video cameras. These aisle ushers must have been told to look for this, but they were extremely distracting. And they didn't stand back in the portals where they would be out of the way, they stood out in the stairs watching the crowds, moving up and down the stairs. Not only did they block several peoples views but they distracted the heck out of us. We had great seats but ended up moving to get away from this one usher. After paying $42 for seats I don't expect to feel like we're in a police state. I mean come on, if someone wants to videotape their kid on a home video camera, is it really going to cut into BOA's profits from selling professional grade video tapes!! I don't think so. This needs to be addressed by BOA.

 

Ok, back to the show. Congrats to all of the bands and looking forward to next year. I think Texas will be well represented at GN.

 

Oh, one other thing. I know Marcus isn't going to GN, but wouldn't it be cool if every Super Regional winner got a free pass to GN finals? That way a band could skip some of the cost and missed school time associated with attending the whole three day event. If this were the case I bet Marcus or another school in this situation would consider putting together a last minute trip to compete at GN finals. But I'm probably just dreaming.....

[itsstephenyo]

  takigan said:

if you still want to argue these points, go ahead and PM me and we'll continue it there....

 

Indeed. Please take it to PM's. This is a thread about BOA SA. Thank you.

 

Clarinet_Lover, yea, I was pretty surprised. You guys cleaned up the visual package A LOT. At first I really didn't like the Soulja Boy stuff, but it seems like y'all changed it up a little bit, and this time around, I liked it. I actually didn't make it down in time for prelims, so I was praying hard that Hebron would make finals.

[Danpod]

  Steeldrum said:

My biggest (only) complaint about the show was the freaking BOA nazis roaming the stands looking for people with video cameras. These aisle ushers must have been told to look for this, but they were extremely distracting. And they didn't stand back in the portals where they would be out of the way, they stood out in the stairs watching the crowds, moving up and down the stairs. Not only did they block several peoples views but they distracted the heck out of us. We had great seats but ended up moving to get away from this one usher. After paying $42 for seats I don't expect to feel like we're in a police state. I mean come on, if someone wants to videotape their kid on a home video camera, is it really going to cut into BOA's profits from selling professional grade video tapes!! I don't think so. This needs to be addressed by BOA.

 

The reason video cameras aren't allowed at BOA events is the distribution of videos without the proper permissions. BOA got into A LOT of trouble because of copyright issues, so much so that their previous video partner, 800 Video Express, was basically forced to shut down operation. They are just trying to stay out of legal trouble.

 

WGI DVDs have some portions of shows that are silent because the original composers of the pieces won't allow their pieces to be replicated on DVD. I know it sucks but that's the situation we're in.

[treblemaker]

What about people with cell phones? Were they going that far as to stop those people? It's poor quality video but video none the less.

[Danpod]

  lhsfluter said:

What about people with cell phones? Were they going that far as to stop those people? It's poor quality video but video none the less.

 

I know they were catching people that were using their digital cameras on the Movie Mode. It's a little obvious when you're holding an electronic device at forehead level for the duration of a performance, haha.

[treblemaker]

  Danpod said:

I know they were catching people that were using their digital cameras on the Movie Mode. It's a little obvious when you're holding an electronic device at forehead level for the duration of a performance, haha.

 

That's almost excessive! haha. I had my phone out taking pictures not videos though. I assumed my phone would never do the show any justice.

[rpd]

I never really noticed the ushers. Lucky me I guess. My only problem was the people who decided to yell out stuff during Westfields performance of One. It probably wasn't to much of a problem for some people, but I was near the group that was doing it. As a huge Metallica fan I was livid when they almost ruined the moment.

[clintbhs]

I havent been to a BOA since 2005, and wow things have changed.

 

I noticed most bands started early, and had a "pre show" before the announcer started, which is a whole lot better than marching out to a cadence.

 

Also, I noticed how bands this year played kinda soft. I was used to bands playing extremely loud to get a crowd reaction, but, it truly showed off their playing abilities when they play at a nice volume. Bowie on the other hand, it made me like the show cause it was loud, but it is quality over loudness most bands are doing these days... which is good.

 

Marcus by far had the best sound, Bell had great visual/GE and TW.. I had no clue what the #'s represented but the music was nice.

 

Congrats to all

[Clarinot]

  Maverick27 said:

Oh yeah, Woodlands, I was watching your show from almost the endzone so I couldn't hear much of the show, but we all thought it was a sudoku show for a while

I think it was about sudoku...maybe?

[yayband07]

wow that was an interesting regional lots of great bands did not make finals which is quite a shockker like clearbrook, cypress falls, langhams and spring im waiting to ssee the prelims sheeet

[trumpetman1288]

When you compare show concepts, but more importantly performances and execution, it wasn't hard to see why some bands did and did not make finals.

 

I made the mistake of thinking this regional would not be stacked...upon seeing it (more importantly finals) I see how wrong I was to think that. There were a lot of bands that could have made finals based simply on concepts, but the execution during those days is what decided the finalists. I admit I was kind of shady on some of the finalists myself, but even then, the bands I felt were less deserving of finals were still spectacular.

[Maverick27]

oh ok, I just thought I counted a 10x10 grid of numbers at the end

[Spazztastic]

Just out of curiousity...

 

After reading through most of this thread I've noticed that almost everyone

enjoyed the Prelims performances better and seemed to think the they were,

for the most part, better executed and more effective.

 

I know our band had a much cleaner show in prelims and we got hyped up

and excited going into finals and thus, execution was weak.

 

Was this true of most bands that performed in finals?

 

I will say this about my band though, we had fun in our farwell performance

and I wouldn't have had it any other way.

[barisaxy08]

i thought since we (westfield) had an okay performance in prelims...but we managed to pull out as 5th in prelims.

 

then when we came to finals...i felt like we had the best performance ever...and then we managed to place 9th.

 

so you can thank BOA for confusing me to the fullest.