Assorted ramblings from the world of entertainment:

• Members of Champion High School’s marching band will join the Fleetwood Mac tribute act Fleetwood Gold on stage Saturday at the Warren Community Amphitheatre as part of the River Rock at the Amp concert series.

About 18 to 20 students along with director of bands Derrick Kittle and elementary music teacher Josh Cokrlic, who assists with the marching band and the high school jazz band, will be performing with Fleetwood Gold, which has shows in Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Indiana on its summer tour schedule.

“It’s a cool thing for our kids,” Cokrlic said. “For many of them, it’s the only time they’ll get to feel what it’s like to be a true professional musician with a load-in and sound check and everything.”

Cokrlic knows Sunrise Inn co-owner Bob Miller and taught both of his children at Champion, and that’s how Sunrise Entertainment reached out to him in the spring about the opportunity.

Participating students were able to rehearse with the sheet music before the end of the school year. Another rehearsal is scheduled today, and the students will get to rehearse with Fleetwood Gold at soundcheck on Saturday.

“The management for Fleetwood Gold has been outstanding,” Cokrlic said. “They sent me a lot of information, a lot of material, all the sheet music.”

After the soundcheck, the student musicians will return to the high school, which will serve as their “green room” as they enjoy catering, courtesy of Sunrise.

The students — and the band directors — will suit up in their marching band uniforms and return to the amphitheater to close Fleetwood Gold’s first set with performances of “Tusk” and “Don’t Stop.”

“This is an opportunity to show them what you can do, you can be a traveling musician, you can be a musician for hire, there are a lot of opportunities besides just being a music teacher in public school,” Cokrlic said.

Gates open at 5 p.m. Saturday at the Warren Community Amphitheatre, 321 Mahoning Ave. NW, and the music starts with My Drunk’n Uncle at 5:30 p.m. and Fleetwood Gold starting around 8:30 p.m.

Tickets are $10 with children ages 12 and younger admitted free with a paying adult.

• For marching bands that want to really rock out, Metallica is expanding its Marching Band Competition for 2024.

The hard rock / heavy metal band had marching band charts created for “Enter Sandman,” “Master of Puppets,” “One” and other Metallica favorites provided by Hal Leonard via sheetmusic

direct.com.

Marching band directors are invited to create programs built around Metallica’s music and submit videos of the performance. Last year nearly 500 college and high school bands participated.

For 2024 they’ve expanded the competition to five categories — two college levels (one for Division I schools and the other for Divisions II and III) and three high school levels (large, medium and small schools).

The members of Metallica will determine the winners in each category, and fans will get the opportunity to vote for their favorites as well. Fan voting will run from Dec. 1 to 31.

Winners will receive instruments and gear for their schools’ music programs, provided by Metallica, in partnership with Sweetwater, with sponsorship from TAMA and others to be announced. The total prize pool is valued at nearly $200,000.

Schools have until Sept. 23 to register at metallicamarchingband.com and until Nov. 25 to submit their performance videos. All participating schools will receive sheet music with marching band arrangements for 13 Metallica songs for free.

Andy Gray is the entertainment editor of Ticket. Write to him at agray@tribtoday.com