Saturday, September 6, 2014 We wound down summer festival season by attending our first Riot Fest. While smaller versions of the festival took place in Toronto at Fort York the last two years, this year offered an expanded line-up at Downsview Park. Having rained hard the night before, we made the trek north under grey […]

Sunday, July 27, 2014 Workshop: Marmalade Skies (Lake Stage, 11AM) The Hillside Sunday Gospel Session has the power to make even the staunchest non-believers believe in something, anything. This year’s country-blues lineup of Elephant Revival, Red Moon Road, Samantha Martin & Delta Sugar, and Spirit Family Reunion was hard to pass up, but we instead […]

Saturday, July 26, 2014 Workshop: The First Days are the Hardest (Island Stage, 11AM) The first days can be the hardest, but not when they begin with a workshop featuring Winnipeg’s Royal Canoe and Seryn from Denton, Texas. With six people in each band, the stage was overflowing with musicians as they joined in on […]

Friday, July 25, 2014 We’ve been going to Hillside Festival in Guelph for three years now, and while this weekend didn’t have the greatest ending (Sunday night’s schedule got rained out), it’s still a weekend we look forward to all year! There are certain things about the festival that never change: the excitement felt getting […]

Sunday, July 6, 2014 Jon Langford & The Burlington Welsh Male Chorus (East Stage, 12:45PM) Devin Cuddy (South Stage, 12:50PM) The third day of a festival is often tough and can prove difficult to drag yourself to the grounds early. It was however worth the early morning in order to catch Devin Cuddy, whose set […]

Saturday, July 5, 2014 Caitlin Rose (South Stage, 1:10PM) Day 2 of the festival began early in the afternoon, with Caitlin Rose on the South Stage. Boasting a voice more massive than you’d initially expect, a typical country starlet Rose is not. The Nashville native spun tenderhearted Opry-worthy ballads doused in the whiskey and cigarette […]

Friday, July 4, 2014 In just its second year, the Toronto Urban Roots Festival has become one of our favourite weekends of the summer. Once again, Jeff Cohen and Co. at Collective Concerts compiled an extensive lineup that defied the typical boundaries of roots and folk. Taking advantage of one of the hills on location, […]

Sunday, June 8, 2014 In stark contrast to the previous day, there was the promise of rain in the low-hanging clouds as Day 2 of Field Trip got underway on the Fort York stage. Flanked by a couple of backup singers and with just a laptop providing backing tracks behind her, 2013 Polaris Prize short-lister […]

Saturday, June 7, 2014 The sun was high in the sky by the time Day 1 of the second annual Field Trip festival got underway at Fort York. Curated by Toronto record label Arts & Crafts, this year’s lineup largely extended past their own roster to include a multitude of friends. When not listening to […]

As usual, we had a great time at Canadian Music Week. It’s always exciting for us to celebrate Canadian music and we’re excited to do it again next year – May 5-9, 2014! Here’s a list of all the bands we covered and links to the respective posts: Tuesday, May 6, 2014 The C’mons Stuck […]