St. Clair wins 2017 WDIV Battle of the Bands plus my other favorites

In the footnote to Michigan marching bands parade in the holiday season over the years, I told my readers "I'll follow up on WDIV's Battle of the Bands in a future post.  Stay tuned."  I thank my readers for their patience; today I report the winner as well as my other favorites.

Unfortunately, Southgate Anderson, which I was rooting for in Rockford marching band in New York for Macy's Parade plus Battle of the Bands for Detroit's Thanksgiving Parade, did not win.  However, I'm not upset about it.  Looking at the clip of their performance in WDIV's Battle of the Bands shows that they didn't take their appearance all that seriously, so I wouldn't have voted for them if I hadn't declared my preference beforehand.  Instead, the St. Clair Marching Saints won.  The WDIV video has the announcers talking over the band, so I'm posting St. Clair Marching Saints - Thanksgiving Parade 2017 by Julie Martel on YouTube instead.


That's a much better performance than Southgate Anderson's or all but two other marching bands in the parade in my opinion as a former marching band judge.  Of those two, it was slightly but definitely better than one and nearly tied with the other.  Besides, St. Clair won the Battle of the Bands the previous time it marched in the parade.  Had I known that, I would have been likely to call it the co-favorite along with Dakota High School from Macomb, Michigan, which I'll show over the jump.

While I complained about WDIV's announcers talking over the band, one of them did say something interesting, that the band did a tribute to "Monty Python and the Holy Grail."  Here is a performance of that program, which took place three years ago.

Marching Band Festival at Port Huron High School. October 7, 2014

I'm enough of a Monty Python fan to have mentioned the comedy troupe in the the body of five entries (six including today) and quoted them in the comments to another.  All but one of them have referred to "Monty Python and the Holy Grail," so of course I embedded this show.

Follow over the jump for the rest of my top three in America's Thanksgiving Parade.

The band that I thought was nearly tied with St. Clair was Hunters Lane High School from Tennessee.  Based on the clips at WDIV's website, I'd have voted for them if I hadn't already voted for Southgate Anderson.  Here is their performance from WDIV.

Hunters Lane High School Marching Band will be coming all the way from Nashville to battle it out at this year's Thanksgiving Parade in Detroit.

For the sake of completeness, here is their 2017 field show from Killa Kev Productions.

The Hunters Lane "Human Boombox" performing their show @ their first annual "Boombox Battle of the the Bands" in Nashville, TN.

They're not as refined as St. Clair, but they make up for it in energy and showmanship.

The final band in my top three was Dakota High School from Macomb.  Unfortunately, the clip of this year's TV performance on WDIV is ruined by sirens overpowering the band, so I am using a clip from two years ago, when they last won The WDIV Battle of the Bands.

Thanksgiving Parade 2015 - TV Zone Performance

That performance might have won this year.

Again, for the sake of completeness, here is their 2017 field show at MSBOA Festival 2017 - L'Anse Creuse North 10/10/2017.

Division 1. Straight A's from every judge!

If this had been a field show competition instead of a parade popular vote, Dakota would likely have won.

That's enough of marching bands until New Year's Day.  Stay tuned for a more standard Sunday entertainment feature focusing on the Grammy nominees relevant to science, science fiction, and fantasy.