Zoey Schentzel

The Pride of the Dakotas Marching Band performs during halftime of a football game against Montana State Saturday, Sept. 9, 2023 at Dana J. Dykhouse Stadium in Brookings. The Pride will perform a new halftime show for SDSU’s games against Northern Iowa on Hobo Day and NDSU.

Taylor Lindekugel

For this year’s Hobo Day halftime show, The Pride is performing songs that are all sung by female artists. The songs include “Respect” by Aretha Franklin, “Holiday” by Madonna and “Shake It Off” by Taylor Swift.

According to Kevin Kessler, The Pride’s band director, some of the inspiration came from two major pop icons having tours this summer or supposed to have tours this summer. These tours include Taylor Swift’s “The Eras Tour” and Madonna’s “Celebration Tour,” which ended up being postponed until later this month.

“We decided that it would be a good idea to highlight that,” Kessler said. “For the third song, it came down to a choice of what artist was a pioneer for those two artists.” It was decided that Aretha Franklin fit that role.

Once the songs were picked out, the band had only had a couple of weeks to prepare for the upcoming show. Although it was a lot of work, Kessler said the band was looking forward to the performance. Portia Bird, one of The Pride’s drum majors, was especially excited.

“I think that having three female drum majors and getting the opportunity to do a show like this is really empowering,” Bird said. “Instrumental music definitely has a gender bias, and getting to break that with a powerful show and three women leading it really is just an amazing experience, especially since the artists of the songs we’re performing are all powerhouses.”

Bridget Koch, who plays tenor saxophone in The Pride, can’t wait to perform. “It’s cool that we’re only doing women artists, and it’s cool how Kessler puts meaning behind our show themes,” Koch said. “It’s more fun to do the shows when there’s meaning behind it.”

The main goal for The Pride is to create a show that’s entertaining for everybody. “We always try to fashion shows in a way that will be entertaining across generations,” Kessler said. “I’m excited for the show, it’s good music and there’s music and artists represented that will entertain and speak to anybody that’s in the stadium.”

The Pride loves bringing the energy on Hobo Day. In the morning, they’ll march in the Hobo Day Parade and will play for the tailgate locations in the afternoon. The Pride will then perform their show during halftime of the football game. The band will perform it again Nov. 4 when SDSU plays NDSU. “It really is a privilege to perform a show like this,” Bird said. “We’ve worked hard in some not amazing weather because we want to deliver the best product we can for the people that love us. It’ll be a great show!”