Saturday, November 30, 2013

Detroit Thanksgiving Parade--Battle of the Bands


I set myself a task at the end of Detroit's Thanksgiving Parade--the tradition continues.
In addition, there is a viewership vote for for best marching band: 2013 Battle of the Bands.  As a former marching band judge, I suppose I should add my expert opinion to that of the masses.  Time to watch the videos.
I watched the videos available at WDIV's website and voted for the following band, which impressed me with the quality of their playing.

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Unfortunately, they most likely won't win.  Right now, Brighton H.S. is in third place with 9% of the vote and five shares of the video on Facebook.  Instead, it looks like St. Clair H.S. will win, as the video has 37 shares on FB and 38% of the vote.  Here's the clip of their performance.

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It's a solid performance, but it just didn't impress me the way Brighton's did.

Follow over the jump for two bands I liked better than St. Clair and a bonus video of the current runner up.

Here's the band I ranked second based on their execution of a more demanding visual show, Waterford Kettering H.S.

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While I think the band is in second, it's currently in fifth with 6% of the vote.

Also, here's a band that I probably wouldn't have ranked ahead of St. Clair as a judge, but enjoyed more as a spectator, Detroit All-City Band, which has 1% of the vote and is in dead last.

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Finally, while there is no video of this year's parade performance for the current second place band, Fraser H.S., which has 31%, I was able to find a video of one of their halftime shows on YouTube.

Watch as the Fraser Marching Band preforms four songs in Shades of Latin.
That's fun to watch and listen to, but I couldn't have voted for them based on that performance.  It would be like comparing apples and oranges to judge a parade on a field performance.

Enough of marching band.  I'll get back to SRS BZNS in my next entry.

2 comments:

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    1. Sorry Dearie, but Mr. Gold reminds you that your comment is off topic for this entry. Try again with a post that fits one of your topics more closely. Until then, off to the bit bucket with you!

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