BOA 2022 Season - A Few Comments
Nov 16, 2022 22:24:19 GMT -6
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cinnamonpromenade, hewhowaits, and 12 more like this
Post by boahistorybuff on Nov 16, 2022 22:24:19 GMT -6
I will post a full season review on the history thread a few months down the road. I typically like to rewatch some shows before I do that.
I did want to make a few comments about this season while they were fresh in my brain. This is of course an open forum and we all have different opinions so feel free to share some of your thoughts and memories.
Fist off, after what will be known as the great Grand National streaming fail of 2022, I rewatched finals with a couple who were in marching band in the 1980s but have not followed the activity since. Their reaction was somewhat what I predicted. They were surprised by the amount of color, the band and guard attire, the props and the electronics. They were also perplexed by the how much moving around there was by the band. Some things they liked, some they were unsure of. What they both agreed on was that they could not believe these were high school kids. I had the multi cam version playing so that they could see that yes these were indeed kids. They were blown away by how good these bands played and how much they got into the show. I wanted to share this because I think it is a sentiment felt by a lot of us who have been following this activity for a very long time. It is just unreal how good these kids are. This why I still follow high school marching band even though I have been out of the activity for over 30 years. I thank all these kids for the hard work they put into this season, we all enjoyed it.
I think this season had some extraordinary moments on the regional front. Seven bands won a BOA regional for the first time; Dartmouth MA, Cataba Ridge SC, Jenison MI, Cedar Ridge TX, Wakeland TX, Lincoln SD and Clovis NM. The latter two were the first BOA regional titles for their states and Clovis actually picked up two wins.
The super regionals did not disappoint. As always with such strong competition at these super regionals there were some disappointments, great performances that just did not quite get into finals. This of course was really the case at San Antonio. I thought this was one of the strongest San Antonio regionals I have seen. While Hebron won, boy did The Woodlands and Ronald Reagan give them a run for their money. In fact all those bands were so good, I really did not care about placement. I certainly think Hebron had the best overall ensemble sound of the season. The high energy of The Woodlands and their guard impressed me quite a bit too.
I kind of figured Grand Nationals would be a bit unpredictable. I just think there were so many bands at similar performance levels, which can certainly make for some interesting placement shifts during the course of the three day event.
I know for as many disappointments that happened at nationals there were an equal amount of pleasant surprises. Certainly heartbreaking to not see bands like Marian Catholic, Catawba Ridge and Center Grove make semis. I was however pleasantly surprised to see Plymouth Canton slide into semis as this was a challenging season for them.
The semi finals show in this era is really like watching an extended finals show. I mean the top 25 bands or so would have been serious finals contenders 15 to 20 years ago. The competition is that fierce. For me there were some surprise bands that did not quite get to finals. I certainly thought M&G Johnson would be in. I also thought American Fork would make finals. I really wanted that band in and I think they gave an extraordinary performance in semi finals. I wished they could have tied for 12th instead of getting 13th. In their 1st and only Grand National Finals appearance in 1995, they were 14th. So this was actually their highest finish at Grand Nationals. I can't say for sure because I have not seen most of the big name California bands this season but American Fork has to be near the top of best bands from west of the Rockies.
There were a few bands that made a big statement at Grand Nationals. I think a lot of people started counting Homestead out of being in the top echelon of bands this year. Homestead obviously had a little bumpy road this season but they really came through at nationals and landed in the top 20. I love it, they just said to everybody not to count them out of another finals appearance.
Then there was Robert E Henrickson who finished 25th at BOA San Antonio the week prior and then landed themselves in finals and finished 9th. I could tell they were putting their all in that finals show. Southlake Carroll was another band that surprised a lot of us. They were a band that many had written out of being in finals. Boy did they deliver in finals. I loved that show, especially the music. They then pulled off a 7th place finish. Of course it was also great to see first time finalists Brownsburg and Fishers.
For me, I think one of the most memorable moments of Grand National finals was actually the exhibition performance. First off, Archbishop Alter managed to beat three strong Kentucky bands for their first GN Class A title. After all these big bands delivered loud and powerful performances on finals, out comes the Class A exhibition band with less than 40 members. They had to play to a packed GN Finals stadium. When you are that small of a band, every member probably feels very exposed. This was also most likely the biggest audience this band ever performed in front of and they had the audience in their hands the entire time. They were performing just for the love of performing and I think it was the most memorable performance of the night. Yes that's right, a 35 or so member band stole the show on finals night.
Now I know one of the things that these forums are supposed to do is rank the bands. Hopefully the students dont put to much stock in these as it is just our way to pretend to be judges and just boost the excitement level. Yes a place for band geeks to be band geeks. Now I think there are sometimes when the commentary may go a bit too far. I dont mean to single any one person out, but here are my thoughts on some comments that bothered me a little bit.
First off, be careful with posting and placing judgement on just one performance. Sometimes bands can have off moments. All of us that have been in band know that feeling. Unfortunately these days those performances can get plastered over YouTube. Centerville had I think maybe a weaker performance posted. I think the point may have been that they may not make semis. Well the Centerville Jazz band was as good as always and easily made semi finals. As always I loved their show, especially their saxophones. Centerville was awesome.
I have said this a few times and I will say it again, dont ever count Avon out of delivering in Grand National Finals. Avon has a lot of difficulty in their show, music and visual. Their music performance is typically not as polished early season but gets stronger week by week. Avon's music was outstanding at nationals.
I know in a competitive arena, it is common to talk smack about your competitors. However, after a band wins the Grand National Title, you just leave it at that. Throughout the season, I agree that Hebron was leading over Carmel. However, something really lit a fire in Carmel on Grand National Finals night. They gave an incredibly good performance. It was insanely clean. The music was absolutely superb. If I think back to the days when I was learning music and listening to judges tapes I think Carmels performance would have been described as having wonderful phrasing and depth. Those are just the words I thought when I was listening to them perform. Now I know others may have different opinions and that is OK. This is how I see it had Hebron attended nationals. Both Carmel and Hebron played difficult music so cleanly that they made it seem easy. The quality of the ensemble sound that Hebron produces is unmatched by any other band (at least in my opinion). Hebron would have taken music performance, perhaps by a decent margin. Now I think Hebron has improved their visual performances markedly since 2015 (their visual scores cost them the GN Title that year). That is why I still see a GN Title in their future. Anyway, if Hebron did go head to head with Carmel at nationals, I still think Carmel would have scored higher than Hebron in all visual captions. That very well could leave music effect as the deciding factor as to who would have won. Even though I have heard both shows on my stereo system, I am just not knowledgeable enough in all the components of music effect to say how the judges would score the two of them in the same competition. This is because I thought Carmel's GN Finals performance and Hebrons San Antonio performance were both extremely strong from a music effect standpoint. So I really don't know who would have won if Hebron competed against Carmel's finals performance. So my point being, Carmel does not need to thank Hebron for not attending. I think Carmel was so good in Finals that it would have been very close between the two of them and yes Carmel may have been able to pull off the win with Hebron there.
So these are just some of my thoughts. If you disagree, that is OK. Just keep the comments respectful. I do know that one thing we can all agree on is that there were a ton of amazing and enjoyable performances this season. I appreciate all the hard work that everyone involved put in to this season.
I did want to make a few comments about this season while they were fresh in my brain. This is of course an open forum and we all have different opinions so feel free to share some of your thoughts and memories.
Fist off, after what will be known as the great Grand National streaming fail of 2022, I rewatched finals with a couple who were in marching band in the 1980s but have not followed the activity since. Their reaction was somewhat what I predicted. They were surprised by the amount of color, the band and guard attire, the props and the electronics. They were also perplexed by the how much moving around there was by the band. Some things they liked, some they were unsure of. What they both agreed on was that they could not believe these were high school kids. I had the multi cam version playing so that they could see that yes these were indeed kids. They were blown away by how good these bands played and how much they got into the show. I wanted to share this because I think it is a sentiment felt by a lot of us who have been following this activity for a very long time. It is just unreal how good these kids are. This why I still follow high school marching band even though I have been out of the activity for over 30 years. I thank all these kids for the hard work they put into this season, we all enjoyed it.
I think this season had some extraordinary moments on the regional front. Seven bands won a BOA regional for the first time; Dartmouth MA, Cataba Ridge SC, Jenison MI, Cedar Ridge TX, Wakeland TX, Lincoln SD and Clovis NM. The latter two were the first BOA regional titles for their states and Clovis actually picked up two wins.
The super regionals did not disappoint. As always with such strong competition at these super regionals there were some disappointments, great performances that just did not quite get into finals. This of course was really the case at San Antonio. I thought this was one of the strongest San Antonio regionals I have seen. While Hebron won, boy did The Woodlands and Ronald Reagan give them a run for their money. In fact all those bands were so good, I really did not care about placement. I certainly think Hebron had the best overall ensemble sound of the season. The high energy of The Woodlands and their guard impressed me quite a bit too.
I kind of figured Grand Nationals would be a bit unpredictable. I just think there were so many bands at similar performance levels, which can certainly make for some interesting placement shifts during the course of the three day event.
I know for as many disappointments that happened at nationals there were an equal amount of pleasant surprises. Certainly heartbreaking to not see bands like Marian Catholic, Catawba Ridge and Center Grove make semis. I was however pleasantly surprised to see Plymouth Canton slide into semis as this was a challenging season for them.
The semi finals show in this era is really like watching an extended finals show. I mean the top 25 bands or so would have been serious finals contenders 15 to 20 years ago. The competition is that fierce. For me there were some surprise bands that did not quite get to finals. I certainly thought M&G Johnson would be in. I also thought American Fork would make finals. I really wanted that band in and I think they gave an extraordinary performance in semi finals. I wished they could have tied for 12th instead of getting 13th. In their 1st and only Grand National Finals appearance in 1995, they were 14th. So this was actually their highest finish at Grand Nationals. I can't say for sure because I have not seen most of the big name California bands this season but American Fork has to be near the top of best bands from west of the Rockies.
There were a few bands that made a big statement at Grand Nationals. I think a lot of people started counting Homestead out of being in the top echelon of bands this year. Homestead obviously had a little bumpy road this season but they really came through at nationals and landed in the top 20. I love it, they just said to everybody not to count them out of another finals appearance.
Then there was Robert E Henrickson who finished 25th at BOA San Antonio the week prior and then landed themselves in finals and finished 9th. I could tell they were putting their all in that finals show. Southlake Carroll was another band that surprised a lot of us. They were a band that many had written out of being in finals. Boy did they deliver in finals. I loved that show, especially the music. They then pulled off a 7th place finish. Of course it was also great to see first time finalists Brownsburg and Fishers.
For me, I think one of the most memorable moments of Grand National finals was actually the exhibition performance. First off, Archbishop Alter managed to beat three strong Kentucky bands for their first GN Class A title. After all these big bands delivered loud and powerful performances on finals, out comes the Class A exhibition band with less than 40 members. They had to play to a packed GN Finals stadium. When you are that small of a band, every member probably feels very exposed. This was also most likely the biggest audience this band ever performed in front of and they had the audience in their hands the entire time. They were performing just for the love of performing and I think it was the most memorable performance of the night. Yes that's right, a 35 or so member band stole the show on finals night.
Now I know one of the things that these forums are supposed to do is rank the bands. Hopefully the students dont put to much stock in these as it is just our way to pretend to be judges and just boost the excitement level. Yes a place for band geeks to be band geeks. Now I think there are sometimes when the commentary may go a bit too far. I dont mean to single any one person out, but here are my thoughts on some comments that bothered me a little bit.
First off, be careful with posting and placing judgement on just one performance. Sometimes bands can have off moments. All of us that have been in band know that feeling. Unfortunately these days those performances can get plastered over YouTube. Centerville had I think maybe a weaker performance posted. I think the point may have been that they may not make semis. Well the Centerville Jazz band was as good as always and easily made semi finals. As always I loved their show, especially their saxophones. Centerville was awesome.
I have said this a few times and I will say it again, dont ever count Avon out of delivering in Grand National Finals. Avon has a lot of difficulty in their show, music and visual. Their music performance is typically not as polished early season but gets stronger week by week. Avon's music was outstanding at nationals.
I know in a competitive arena, it is common to talk smack about your competitors. However, after a band wins the Grand National Title, you just leave it at that. Throughout the season, I agree that Hebron was leading over Carmel. However, something really lit a fire in Carmel on Grand National Finals night. They gave an incredibly good performance. It was insanely clean. The music was absolutely superb. If I think back to the days when I was learning music and listening to judges tapes I think Carmels performance would have been described as having wonderful phrasing and depth. Those are just the words I thought when I was listening to them perform. Now I know others may have different opinions and that is OK. This is how I see it had Hebron attended nationals. Both Carmel and Hebron played difficult music so cleanly that they made it seem easy. The quality of the ensemble sound that Hebron produces is unmatched by any other band (at least in my opinion). Hebron would have taken music performance, perhaps by a decent margin. Now I think Hebron has improved their visual performances markedly since 2015 (their visual scores cost them the GN Title that year). That is why I still see a GN Title in their future. Anyway, if Hebron did go head to head with Carmel at nationals, I still think Carmel would have scored higher than Hebron in all visual captions. That very well could leave music effect as the deciding factor as to who would have won. Even though I have heard both shows on my stereo system, I am just not knowledgeable enough in all the components of music effect to say how the judges would score the two of them in the same competition. This is because I thought Carmel's GN Finals performance and Hebrons San Antonio performance were both extremely strong from a music effect standpoint. So I really don't know who would have won if Hebron competed against Carmel's finals performance. So my point being, Carmel does not need to thank Hebron for not attending. I think Carmel was so good in Finals that it would have been very close between the two of them and yes Carmel may have been able to pull off the win with Hebron there.
So these are just some of my thoughts. If you disagree, that is OK. Just keep the comments respectful. I do know that one thing we can all agree on is that there were a ton of amazing and enjoyable performances this season. I appreciate all the hard work that everyone involved put in to this season.