Marching Tigers return to EF for 7th straight year.

Marching Tigers return to EF for 7th straight year.

#EF2019

By Warren Schuitema, OCP Correspondent.

ROTHBURY – You won’t see their name anywhere on the lineup for Electric Forest, but every year since 2013 you can hear the sounds of the Shelby Marching Tigers and Alumni coming from Sherwood Forest.

This year, the band is made up of current students and former ones – recent SHS graduates and alumni dating all the way back to the Class of 1988.

For the 2019 festival, they will march Saturday, June 29, along the back of Sherwood Court to the area near the Hangar and Jubilee stages. The performance will start around 5 p.m. and will last approximately 30 minutes. Along their route, the marching Tigers will stop to perform “I Just Want to Celebrate” and “Shake It Off” for the foresters who are nearby.

“I Just Want to Celebrate” is a hit made famous by Rare Earth in 1971 and has always been a crowd favorite, also having been performed by the Shelby Marching Band at Electric Forest in 2017. “Shake It Off,” a song by Taylor Swift is a more recent hit from 2014, that will almost be guaranteed to get the crowd dancing.

Every year that the Shelby Marching Band performs at Electric Forest, they are invited as a part of a program started by the festival called “Music In Schools.” Through “Music In Schools,” the band is given a check that has been used for a number of things throughout the years: a piano lab in the middle school, new marching band uniforms, scholarships for students to attend camps in the summer, and supplies like valve oil and reeds.

Through the band’s performances, a total of approximately $40,000 has been raised for the band program, said Shelby Band Director Curt Isakson.

“They have been very committed to supporting our program,” said Isakson. I believe we have worked very hard at using the funding they give us for major investments in our program.” In addition to the money that is given to the school, all the alumni are also given a free wristband for their participation, so that they are able to go and see what the festival is all about.

“They have been very supportive to our program, and they are sincere about supporting our program,” he said.

In addition to the EF performances, the marching band also played during the ROTHBURY music festival that was held at the same venue – the Double JJ Resort – in 2008 and 2009, Isakson said.

The 2019 edition of Electric Forest sold out the day that tickets went on sale to the general public this past December after returning to a one-weekend format. EF previously had a two-weekend format in 2017 and 2018.

Electric Forest expects to have nearly 50,000 attendees during the four-day festival. If you were trying to catch the Shelby Marching Tigers on Saturday, or any of the other acts at Electric Forest, hopefully you purchased your tickets already.

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