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.



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.



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.



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.



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.