Music Festivals

Friday night, the 20th opening of the Atlantic Jazz Festival got things on high-boil with a night in the Jazz Tent of Afro-Cuban jazz and dance music. The all-ages capacity crowd was primed to party (and to dust off their latent Latino dance moves) by a set of high energy Latin grooves and Latino songs […]

I still have an entire day (a very LOOOOONNNNNGGGG day: from 10:30am until 4 the following morning) to report on, and geez, it’s already 2am. Before I get to the good stuff of Saturday, I’m gonna post a few photos from Friday’s music performances. Maybe it’s a good thing I ended up missing so many […]

Sorry for leaving things unfinished last night. I truly tried to leave my official “cliffhanger” post, but the blog wouldn’t have it. I think it’s tired of me already. I also meant to leave everyone with this lovely photograph of my cat with his toy mouse, to soothe our very tired eyes, hearts and minds […]

When the alarm went off on Saturday morning, I had some serious decisions to make. “Do I actually get up and make breakfast for Christopher and myself, or do I roll over and die?” I asked. I stumbled out into the living room and found Mr. Rees lying in the sofa bed half-awake, giggling to […]

It was pouring rain when we pulled up to the club at 10pm, and sadly but not surprisingly, both the upstairs and downstairs were feeling pretty cavernous. Too late to catch the excellent Jesse Dangerously’s set–next time, I promise. EMC was still going through his set when I walked into Hell; I’m glad I got […]

I started to climb the stairs up to Ginger’s–believe it or not, this was my first time to the venue ever. I got up to the third stair and the guy at the door yelled “WE’RE FULL!!” over the sounds of someone tuning a guitar and what sounded like 600 people talking at the same […]

This is the one entry I’ve been afraid of writing. I don’t feel capable of expressing how moved I felt on Saturday night/early Sunday morning watching this incredible man perform. His musicians were deadly tight, the music ranged from gentle to fierce to playful to heartbreaking within the space of a song, the lyrics were […]

I don’t know how I did it, but I did it. I found my last reserve of energy and walked down to Ginger’s to see if I could find Christopher, then back up to The Attic to catch Chixdiggit. I have seen Chixdiggit about a billion times, back when I lived out west. That first […]

That’s it. That was the Halifax Pop Explosion 2005, the Tara Lee Wittchen edition. I’m exhausted (still…on Monday night), I’m hungry (who has time to buy groceries when there is rockin’ to do?), and I’m behind on my work (again), but man, I’d do it all again in a second. Welllll…(remembers how sore feet are)…maybe […]

HOLY FRIG!!! It’s just over an hour until the first band hits the stage at the Marquee/Hell’s Kitchen, and I’m so damn excited I think my head’s going to explode… I can’t believe it has been 10 years since I attended my first Halifax Pop Explosion. In late September 1995, I crawled into a smoky […]

You know that sinking feeling you get when you realize you’ve already missed your favourite song at a gig? Maybe the band started early or you arrived late–either way it sucks. At an event like the HPX, you run the risk of not only missing favourite songs, but possibly missing favourite acts altogether, just because […]

Um…so Christopher Rees is performing *tomorrow* night at Ginger’s. I don’t have to run between two bars after all. Until tomorrow. I walked downtown around 9pm, thinking I’d catch Special Noise at Stage Nine, and then, duh, realized the show wasn’t starting until after 10. I had time to catch Ted Leo at the Pavilion!!! […]