March Fourth Marching Band

With a rallying cry of "JOY NOW!" MarchFourth (M4 for short) throws itself and
the audience into a swirling volcano of high-energy music and spectacle. What
began as a Fat Tuesday party on March 4, 2003 in Portland, Oregon has
become one of the nation's best live touring acts. After 2013’s Jam Cruise 11,
they were dubbed “poster child for ‘Party of the Year’” by JamBase.com. NPR
Music says MarchFourth makes Portland look like “the grooviest place in
America.” They bring an energy and style that takes the live concert experience
to a new level of fun, turning unsuspecting concert-goers into fans for life and
transforming ordinary events into joyous occasions. Thanks to word-of-mouth
they are graduating from "best kept secret" to “what everyone’s talking about”.
Whether at a family matinee in a small town in Colorado or a sweaty nightclub in
New York City or a festival mainstage in Louisiana, MarchFourth wins over
audiences of all ages at every occasion, and has consistently been named a
“festival favorite.”

Aside from their one-of-a-kind upcycled vintage marching band uniforms, their 5-
piece percussion corps and the 7-part brass section, MarchFourth is far from a
“marching band” in any traditional sense (though this group of about 20 has been
known to parade down Main Street before taking the stage). Their original music
is anchored by funky electric bass and has been evolving into a rocking guitarand
vocal-driven journey from the swamps of Louisiana to the gypsy camps of
eastern Europe to the African jungle by way of Brazil, echoing the deepest
grooves of American funk, rock, and jazz. That’s all boiled together and framed in
cinematic fashion by high-stepping stilt-acrobatics and dazzling dancers. It’s “the
kind of spectacle that deserves the word ‘awesome,’” (says the Atlanta Journal
Constitution). This band is real people making music and art in real time—and
every show is different.

At the core of the band is its DIY ethic. The band has been writing and arranging
all of its own material, designing and fabricating its own costumes and
merchandise, developing its own choreography and managing itself from Day
One. With the addition of their booking agency (Skyline Music) in 2010, M4 has
been touring relentlessly. MarchFourth is akin to a team sport with a roster of
more performers than ever share the stage together at once. The band tours with
around 20 performers: approximately 8 horns, 5 drummers, bass, guitar, and 5
dancers/stiltwalkers.

The first two studio albums released by MarchFourth were recorded, produced
and mastered entirely “in-house.” Their newest release, Magnificent Beast (out
10/25/11) was produced by Steve Berlin (Los Lobos) and features a wide array of
genre-mashing groove-based material that incorporates more vocals and guitar
than previous albums. Following their 2009 release, Rise Up (a tribute to post-
Katrina New Orleans), Magnificent Beast has now evolved into a full-blown bigstage
brass-rock-funk assault peppered with moments of swing, jazz, bollywood,
ska and metal.

With so many members and writers, M4's influences are all over the map, but
fans of Sgt Pepper, Duke Ellington, Gogol Bordello, Ozomatli, and Cirque Du
Soleil would likely feel at home in the audience. MarchFourth has shared the
stage with a wide variety of acts, including Pink Martini, Budos Band, Balkan
Beat Box, Trombone Shorty, Preservation Hall Jazz Band, Beats Antique,
Bassnectar, Antibalas, Melvin Seals and JGB, The Motet, Hot Buttered Rum, and
Yard Dogs Road Show. The band has also been climbing the festival roster, with
return appearances at Wakarusa, Bumbershoot, Voodoo Festival, Telluride Jazz
Festival, High Sierra, Wanderlust, Lotus World Music Festival, Jam Cruise and
Strawberry Music Festival, as well as appearances on MTV’s The Real World
(Portland), ESPN's Espy Awards (Los Angeles) and WGN-TV (Chicago).
MarchFourth inspires dancing... when the audience can tear its eyes from
the kaleidoscope of visual energy (and maybe even a crowd-surfing stilter)
pouring from the stage. “Part New Orleans brass ensemble, part groove-heavy
rock group, and part vaudevillian circus, this group unleashes such a technicolor
experience that using the word ‘concert’ to describe their performance falls flat”
(5820 Magazine). M4 provides the opportunity to come together in joyous union
with a band whose mission is to seize the moment, bring communities together,
and leave everyone feeling as if the world is a better place.