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Vancouver 125th Birthday: Summer Live

Ever since the City of Vancouver announced its lineup of local musicians, arts and culture for Vancouver’s 125th birthday celebration, I’ve been waiting in anticipation.

I must admit that post-riot, I was nervous at the thought of having large crowds in Stanley Park (probably not as much as the City of Vancouver). But, what a beautiful weekend it was. From what I could see, the crowds were young, music lovers genuinely there to see good live music - people willing to park the car at home and get to Stanley Park by whatever alternative transportation means was available (walk, public transit, shuttle bus and/or bike).

I only caught a few evening performances on Friday and Saturday and loved riding my bike to and from my home off Commercial Drive each evening. 

I remember a time when you could only name a handful of popular, talented bands from Vancouver. Now you can put together an entire music festival of them and draw crowds of almost 100,000 to see them play. Vancouver has come a long way in 125 years.

Mother Mother: one of those bands that are even better live than on their record. Non-stop energy and a set list full of catchy, danceable songs.

Said the Whale: We went to catch them after leaving the New Pornographer’s set. Ben Worcester (above) has this awesome gravely, storyteller’s voice and is the one who always sings the band’s songs about the history of Vancouver and British Columbia (i.e. False Creek Change, Black Day in December, B.C. Orienteering, etc.)

Neko Case and the New Pornographers: Neko gave a lovely performance that was fitting for the early evening time slot as the sun was setting. Can’t say the same for the New Pornographer’s unfortunately, who played after her (she is a member of the band also). I was a big fan of their songs and had never seen them live. They sounded terribly off, looked bored and uninterested in each other and apparently told people to stop clapping at one point and did not do an encore (I heard this after the fact, because I left to go see Said the Whale after four songs). I can’t really judge if this is typical and perhaps they were having sound issues, so who knows.

Thanks to all of the sponsors, artists, staff and volunteers for putting on such a great event!

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  1. canada-news reblogged this from thiscitylife
  2. rommy said: It really was great. We need more music/cultural events like this to channel the energy of the city into a positive mindset. I hope Summer Live becomes an annual (or monthly!) summer occurrence.
  3. morethis said: My boyfriend say the New Pornographer issues were to due a bad sound guy and the crowd being dicks. Apparently someone threw a drink at Neko and almost hit her.
  4. thiscitylife posted this

 

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