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 […]

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!!! […]

I think it’s nearly 10pm on Sunday. I feel like I’ve been asleep for a hundred years. And also like a large mammal has been kicking me in the guts, brain and soles of my feet. I ingested no booze, no illicit substances, and yet I feel WRECKED. I managed to wake myself up today […]

Back to Friday night. When last I wrote, I was attempting to race down to Stage Nine to catch Special Noise. I didn’t make it. My first “miss” of the weekend. I tried to console myself by telling myself that I could catch them another time. It’s only half-true. Yes, I can catch them another […]

So I’m going to see if I can handle posting photographs on this blog. Lately anything involving technology + me = crash (e.g., computer, camera flash, tape recorder, scanner, buttons on my shirt). HEY, IS THIS THING ON?!?

As I’m going through the hundreds of photographs I shot this weekend, I realize there are quite a few that don’t involve the musicians on stage. For a festival like the Halifax Pop Explosion to be successful, you need a lot of people to come together and play their own important behind the scenes roles. […]

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 […]