Again, I apologize for the tardiness of these reviews. It's a long story, but the forum just refuses to allow me to post these, so I have had to devise a different method of publishing them. This blog is my solution, at least for the time being. For a lot of reasons, but mainly because I did not record videos of them, I decided not to write reviews for the bands that did not make finals. I believe it is important to give my readers the opportunity to decide for themselves whether they agree or disagree with my opinions. So here are my reviews for the finalists, and for Ryle's exhibition performance. I hope you enjoy reading!
North Oldham - "All In"
When I first heard about North Oldham's show, I was dubious because I kept asking myself, "How many things can you really do to represent Poker?" Alas, I learned a lot of ways from this show. Very nice visual design, with the cards and the stacks of poker chips. I also like how the props are used at various points and in various ways throughout the show; those go so much further with me personally than static props that just sit there. I was amused by the arrangement of "Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend" from Moulin Rouge, complete with a cameo of Madonna's "Material Girl". In comparison with past North Oldham shows, this one is much more ambitious musically and at least as much so visually. I like the drill, because it has good velocity and is always doing something interesting. Mike Z really is working wonders with this band. Their marching was definitely top two at this competition; their excellent posture and technique were a very refreshing change from the norm. Lines broke down during some of their drill sets, and will need practice to be ironed out. There is only one weak point for the band at this moment: musical performance. The featured players were all great for the most part, full of bravado and only a couple of moments where they went out of control. The winds as a whole did a good job, as well, though they will have to iron out the big run in their opener. Their blend will need some work, because there were voices sticking out in just about every sustained note; I think one thing that would help them would be to turn down their overwhelming synthesizer. Continuing to improve their air support will also really help their blend going forward. In addition, the mallet players have their work cut out for them, because their parts are not only very fast and challenging at some points, they're also integral to the energy flow of the show at several of those points. They did a good job yesterday, but will need to really click into place in order to maximize their impact during those important passages. So at this point, this show is a mixed bag of good and needs improvement, but they have over a month left to clean, and I think they'll be turning a lot of heads at semifinals in November. I think they will crack the top 8.
Woodford County - "Beloved"
This band just keeps getting better and better, and so do their marching shows. I like the darkness of this show, which is narrated with passages from the Edgar Allen Poe poem Annabel Lee. The two members who dance in the beginning do a great job of portraying the affection presented between the narrator and his doomed companion. The entire show is very somber and carries with it a funereal air, but not so much so that it bogs down the show's pacing or energy level. The music is not overly complicated, which I think will leave some points on the table once everyone has had time to clean up their shows. But I would not say that it's easy, either, especially since more sustained notes means more responsibility for listening in and blending, which is a very underrated skill. Woodford County is beginning to blend very well on a consistent basis, which will really help them going forward. There were a couple of faster spots that will need some practice to smooth out. The low woodwind feature in their ballad is very haunting, and with more practice, will really have a big impact. I think the rest of the band could add in some visuals at that point to help portray the sadness of the narrator, as well. Their marching is probably the area that has the biggest potential for improvement. Foot angles, leg straightness, upper body movement, all were different from student to student and made their marching look more like just walking around. It's better than it was last year, but they still really need to have a marching boot camp to fix it. Their show was also bereft of things that caught the eye, and their black uniforms don't add anything. More props would help, and a visual interpretation of the poem's text would really help add to this show. Their musical improvement is really giving them an upward push, so the next step is to raise the show's visual aspect to match the level of their music, and then they can raise the bar again going forward. This is another band that could crack the top 8 at AAAA semifinals; they will be very clean by November lst.
Williamstown - "Galaxy"
For the most part, I absolutely love this show. The color guard uniforms are very pretty, the stars on top of their poles that reflect stadium lighting are a really nice touch, the selections are all appropriate, and I especially love their arrangement of Rocket Man. But there are a couple of things with which I'm not thrilled. Their drill has nice velocity and variation of its forms, and I like the circular forms because they remind the viewer of planets. However, their field coverage is still mediocre at best, though that's a trade-off that seems to work for this band. So more power to them. Also, they do a great rendition of Holst's The Planets suite, but I just don't like how they just fly through Jupiter at breakneck speed in the closer. There's just too much thematic material in that song to boil it down to a sub-3-minute piece. Regardless, I was impressed in week 1 when they had almost their entire show on and they still managed to have it all that clean. They have since added the second half of their closer and had a week and a half to clean. They always seem to have a somewhat lackluster prelims performance, which I attribute to the fact that they are always the first band to perform, which means they always have to get up earlier than everyone else. I call this "the Williamstown effect". Their finals performances are almost always a good deal better than prelims, and this competition was no exception. They had timing issues, a couple of voices sticking out, and lines breaking down in prelims; nothing too major, and their performance was still very clean, but it was enough that Beechwood was able to beat them. In finals, many of those issues were reduced or disappeared completely, but their lines still didn't hit perfectly and there were some uncharacteristic mistakes in their music (specifically a massive tempo tear during a quiet part of their ballad that really killed its impact, from which they did not recover for a good 20 seconds) where they lost a lot of points. Yes, this is the same Williamstown that bested Lafayette at Bourbon County; they just encountered some growing pains at Ryle. I know this band, and I know how Chris Hedges bands deal with underperforming. They will be dangerous at Morehead State next Saturday.
Beechwood - "Muse"
What can I say about this show... Well, it's definitely typical Beechwood. Insanely difficult, not watered down at all, tons of music effect, and very little visual design. And it's still very dirty at this early point in the season. And there's no drumline. I am a huge fan of this band because of the ambition of their musical selections, and I think this end of the spectrum of difficulty level should be attempted more often by bands with the level of talent and knowledge to pull it off. The featured performers were all excellent, especially the woodwinds. The brass features were all enjoyable, but the trombone feature that used all the glissandos will need work. If the players don't all move their slides at the same speed, then it sounds more chaotic and messy than it really is. The whole band sounds phenomenal, and if they can ever clean up their music and nail this tough book, it will be one of the most impressive marching band moments to witness. As with past Beechwood shows, however, there is very little visual innovation other than their drill to match their musical prowess. The jagged lines and interval issues I saw were minor, but there were a lot of them. There was also quite a bit of foot phasing, and their upper bodies had a tendency to bob with their footsteps during sets (especially when backward marching). That would be a pretty good amount of work even for a band that didn't have a bunch of reps to do on their music, so Beechwood has their work cut out for them if they want to put anywhere close to a clean show onto the field before finals. If there's one thing you can say about Beechwood (other than the facts that they're immensely musically talented and one of the classiest bands in the state), it's that they are really hard workers. So I'm not worried about them at all going forward... I did, however, think that at this point in time, Williamstown's cleaner performance, problems and all, would have placed ahead of them both in prelims and in finals.
Tates Creek - "Pulling Strings"
I wasn't really sure what to expect from this show, whether it would be innovative or gimmicky. I had also heard rumors indicating that they might struggle this year because of so many band members having graduated in May. I'm happy to report that this is not the case, and that Tates Creek will be just fine this season. I like what they do with the long plastic strips, and while not exactly groundbreaking, it was a really cool effect that added a lot to the show visually. Their drill is forgettable, but it was diverse, moved well, and gave the band a lot of field coverage (which is both a gift and a curse). Their marching was pretty good, but there were a bunch of spacing issues and crooked lines that will need to be smoothed out. I'm not a big fan of their synthesizer being turned up so high and used to augment their low voices; I think it takes away from the band's sound. There was some field coverage phasing at times that will need to be ironed out; remember, kids, light is faster than sound, so follow the field commander and not the other section's sound. Some voices (especially trumpets) were a little out of control during louder parts of the show and need to be reined in. Their finals run was a lot cleaner than their prelims run, probably the biggest difference of any finalist bands. Their visual performance was pretty clean for this point in the season, and because of how dirty Milford was visually, I was sure Tates Creek would have beaten them in both prelims and finals, and was surprised and dismayed when both times Milford came out on top. Oh well. This is a really enjoyable show, and I'm looking forward to seeing the closer when they put it on. They should be a solid semifinalist and a threat for a top 8 finish in their class, which is nothing to sneeze at.
Milford - "A Thousand Stories"
This band reminds me a lot of Louisville Male, because they have a really tough musical selection, they perform it pretty well, they sound like a symphonic band while they're playing, and their marching makes me cringe. Their show title comes from the Arabian story 1,000 Nights, and their musical selections draw from the Rimsky-Korsakov ballet Scheherazade, which is based on the main character of that story. So it's not an Arabian show, but more of a Russian show. For the most part, I like the arrangement, which gives a lot of sections features while still allowing for plenty of full band impact moments; the one thing I was disappointed to hear was that the most technical passage of the flute solo was written into the mallet parts instead, which left me disappointed. Their drill had quite a bit of velocity, and did a very good job of staging featured players, so it was pretty interesting for the entire performance. From a standpoint of show design, I was pretty satisfied with their presentation, though I think some more additions to their visual design would really give it a boost. I'm a big fan of just about any Russian music, so I thoroughly enjoyed the relatively honest rendition of Scheherazade, sans flute solo rewrite. All of the featured performers and sections did a great job; there was a little bit of voices sticking out or not entirely together, but for this point in the season, they're in good shape. I thought the drum line was a bit understated compared to the Kentucky bands, though some may argue that that is a good thing. The bulk of the points I see them gaining throughout the season is with visual performance; a lot of the classic visual performance errors abound. Upper body movement, toe angles, foot phasing, spacing issues, and most of this is probably due to the velocity of the drill. So the kids are going to have to get used to covering that much ground with their steps and maintaining good technique, and then they're going to have to get used to playing their music while doing so. It's going to take a while, but I'm sure they'll look a whole lot better by the end of the season. This was my first time seeing Milford, so I really enjoyed it. I wish them luck in their season across the river.
Lafayette - "Suite Child o' Mine"
This statement does not reflect upon the quality of the show or the band at all, but I cringe whenever I type out that show title. The show itself is shaping up very well, and I'm really intrigued by how that last movement is going to turn out; from what I'm hearing (and no, I'm not going to tell you), it could be a complete disaster or it could be awesome by the time SMBC rolls around. Lafayette just played the first two movements on Saturday, both drawn from the Disney Epcot Center Millennium Celebration. I'm not a fan of starting out a show with a big hit, but two of the top contenders are doing it this year, and it's working for both of them. I'm enjoying their faithful rendition of the Millennium music, but it's not quite up to Lafayette standards yet. Lafayette's usual blast-your-face-off approach to impact moments is backfiring on them at the moment, because their brasses tend to lose control and take away from the quality of their ensemble sound. Their finals performance fixed most of that, but not all. That and a little bit of mud during their opener were probably the only things separating their musical performance from Madison Central's, and they will be working on that in coming weeks. Their drill is pretty typical of Lafayette: steady movement, about the same amount of holds as any other contender, no really crazy fast movement, no exceedingly slow movement. (Its steadiness at that average speed is what I think a lot of people consider "boring".) It does have more forms that are rounded or abstract than Lafayette usually uses, which is also refreshing. For the most part, it was pretty clean. There was some phasing that will need to be ironed out with a wood block, and they were also plagued with spacing issues and crooked lines. I was somewhat surprised when I heard that they had won overall visual, but it made a lot more sense when I learned afterward that they had tied with Madison Central. I liked the huge cubes with murals on them that Lafayette has added to their show, and I look forward to seeing all of their faces when Lafayette puts the rest of their show on the field. I think there is some room for more visual effect, so I hope they continue to add to the show between now and November. In closing, I urge everyone not to overreact here; Lafayette is still a great band and will be a title contender in early November, they're just not as far along right now as they usually are. These kids work just about as hard as any other marching band in the state, and I have faith that they will pull through and make sure this show is the powerful, emotional experience that it can be.
Madison Central - "Vendetta"
I am so glad that I got to watch my alma mater live. I had seen videos and thought they looked and sounded good, but I wanted to see for myself. It looked and sounded even better in person. I was intrigued when I heard their repertoire consisting of Mozart, East of Eden, Sweeney Todd, and The Godfather, and couldn't wait to see how it panned out. After seeing the show live, I think it all works very well together. The drill moves well and provides very good staging for featured players and sections, and I like how there are so many jagged or v-shaped forms to drive home the "vendetta" concept. Like Lafayette, they only marched their first two movements. Their visual performance was at about the same point as Lafayette's, a mostly clean performance riddled with small spacing errors and crooked lines. These kids do march really well, though, and I see those errors shrinking and eventually disappearing in coming weeks. Their music was a real joy to experience. Great dynamics, very controlled, very balanced, and their impact moments were all on point. There was a little phasing that was most likely caused by field coverage, and was more noticeable in prelims. After seeing them in prelims, I wasn't sure how much better they could do it at this point in the season, but they found another gear, which really impressed me. If there's one thing I wish this show had, it would be two central performers representing Mozart and Salieri to really help keep the show concept fresh and tie everything together. At this point in the season, all of the big contenders for the governor's cup in AAAAA have pretty bare shows right now, and one of the factors that will determine who wins in November is how much they add to their show between now and then and how much those additions help boost effect scores. Madison Central will need to keep adding to this show to keep pace with the other contenders, but knowing how their director works, I don't think this will be much of a problem. I can say with no bias that they earned both wins on Saturday, and that if they continue on their current pace, they will be in finals and will be a really tough band to beat.
Ryle - "Face-Off"
Well, I don't know what I was expecting, but I wasn't expecting that. Ryle's music is maybe the most primal and forceful I have ever seen performed by a marching band. It wasn't bad, it was actually performed rather well... but I had to catch my breath after just watching it. Those kids must be in really good shape! The snare solo at the beginning gives the impression of a duel, and then when the rest of the band joins in, it's very dissonant, jagged, and brassy, giving the impression of violence. Even their ballad, Red Tango, is intense and gives an impression of rivals, lock gazed, circling one another. This band is getting better every year, and their marching band performances reflect that improvement. The low brass has more melody in this show than they normally do, so some added pressure has been placed on them. There were points where they went a little out of control and lost tone quality or the beat, but any issues that appeared were fixed quickly. Their woodwind section is underrated, and they perform their parts with great skill; however, they tend to get lost in the rest of the band's sound. If they could play out more and the brass were to tone it down a bit, then I think their music would sound even better than it does now. They have much of the same early season visual problems that everyone else does: messy lines, interval issues, telegraphing moves, upper body movement. Their show is really intense, and they're just going to have to grow into it as the season goes on. Repetition is this band's friend. I think they, like Madison Central, could use a centerpiece around which the rest of the show tells the story. It would really help portray the show concept, and it would give another visual aspect to their show that would appeal to visual judges and give them something more to focus on. I think this show is going to keep them on their upward trend, and I look forward to seeing it develop and clean up as the season progresses. This is another band that will be a serious threat for a top 8 finish and could push the finalists before the season is over. Thank you for hosting such an enjoyable competition.
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