Jak

Yikes! What happened to Center Grove? Haven't seen them yet, but I noticed they got a 60 at the Indy Regional. Was it bad?

Are there school districts out there that pay for winterguard? That's shocking to me. In my part of the country every band and color guard is 100% self-funded by fees and fundraisers. The only thing the school pays for is the band director's salary and the electricity bill in the bandroom.

The opening was Lux Aurumque by Eric Whitacre, then a choral version of Adagio for Strings by Samuel Barber called Agnus Dei. I didn't recognize the instrumental stuff.

It seems awfully pretentious to me to refer to color guard as "art." However, if that's what you're going to do, you need to be able to accept criticism like any artist would. It seems unusual for an "artist" to forbid people to express negative opinions about his work.

Center Grove has nice fire batons. And Carmel's shimmer hoop feature is extra nice.

Rue Dumaine is wonderful! It's a WGI tradition for me. I always wonder what the people of Dayton think about WGI Championships each year. Last year a guy at Arby's asked me if there was some huge cheerleading competition in town because there were high school girls on school buses all over town. In 2007 (WGI's 30th anniversary), the barista at the Starbucks by Nutter Center asked me if I was here for the porn convention. I asked him what he meant, and he said "You're wearing one of those XXX badges that everybody has on."

A whole bunch of guards used that song 2 years ago. I believe they all edited it out.

SA Class at the Mid-South Regional will have their prelims at Fred J Page High School in Franklin, TN. Semis and Finals will be at Lipscomb University.

Center Grove 97 (Joy) Chimeras 99 (Time to Say Goodbye) These are 2 of my personal faves that have stood the test of time. Many more will come to mind if I think long enough.

It's really difficult to do if you don't have an established reputation where people will want to come march for you. You could try recruiting at local marching band competitions. Try to reach students who love color guard but don't have a winter program at their school.

I think 1997 Center Grove was their best ever. Just beautiful! I liked Lassiter a lot in 98 and 99. Don't think I remember 97. What did they do?

Did Adam Sage get fired again?

I certainly agree about the difficulty of performing with no discernable pulse, and I give them credit for that! I don't know about scoring them in GE; I'm not a judge. I know the sheets talk about musicality. Don't quite know how you would reconcile that...

I think Onyx is great on their equipment and they move beautifully. They're really doing amazing things! But I don't get the soundtrack. First of all, I'll have to leave the gym next time they perform because I can't listen to that again. Secondly, how is what they're doing musical when there's no music? And I wonder how a GE judge scores them when that's such an important part of the criteria. Can you imagine rehearsing to that? "Hey, let's start at that part that goes 'grrrrrrrehhhhhgrrrrr'."

Southern guards mature faster. I think it's the heat...