Over the weekend, thousands of music fans from across the province and throughout the Maritimes descended on beautiful New Glasgow, Nova Scotia for none other than the annual Riverfront Jubilee.
For years, New Glasgow has played host to this amazing, not for profit festival which is organized by the New Glasgow Riverfront Music Jubilee society. Each year, the festival injects up to $1 million into the local economy.
If you thought last year with Big Wreck, Joel Plaskett and more was incredible, the Jubilee easily took it further for 2013.
As I arrived in New Glasgow early in the afternoon on Friday, the town, as well as other arriving fans, many also from Halifax, were getting ready for another weekend of fun, singing, dancing and more.
The gates open at around 6pm on Friday night for a 7pm start to the festivities. The evening started off with an eclectic performance by The Town Heroes, and that’s exactly how the crowd treated them, with singing and loud cheers. Following a loud applause, Cyndi Cain took the stage to pump some “Soul Food” into the minds of concert goers with her jazz-soul sound and band.
Following the opening performers, it was time to kick into high gear for non stop, loud, hard, rock n’ roll until the end of the night. The three guitars and a drum kit that define our own Gloryhound took the stage at 9pm for an hour of non stop rock n’ roll and dancing from the growing Jubilee crowd.
Finally, as the crowd filled in faster than anyone could ever imagine, Prairie rockers the Sheepdogs took the stage declaring their love for East Coast crowds and hospitality, Ewan Currie, Leot Hanson
Ryan Gullen and Sam Corbett make up this spectacular band who took us through their new songs, as well as old, sing along favorites such as “I Don’t Know” and “The Way it Is”. A quick set by local favorite “Alert the Medic” helped to cap the night.
If the opening night wasn’t enough for you, things were just getting started on the Saturday. Kicking things off were Nova Scotia’s own LevyStep. The group began to play just as I walked into the venue. I first saw LevyStep a year ago where they played to a festival with just a handful of people. At the time they were being called “The next big thing” by many and I think that is quickly becoming true as their sound has heavily matured over the last year.
Up next was an appearance by Andrew Hunter & The Gatherers, while I must admit I have not seen Hunter perform live up to the point of the Jubilee, I was completely blown away by the energy he put into his set and holding onto his crowd very well, I will look forward to hearing his rock sounding music at future shows (and hopefully another Jubilee)
As the crowd continued to fill in, fans became increasingly excited about the next act bringing their ship to the shores of the riverfront. The Stanfields took the stage sty 9pm to a loud applause. With their east coast sound blended with hard rock, the group took us through favorites such as “Ship to Shore” and “Dirtiest Drunk”, as well as awesome new tunes off of the “Death and Taxes” album released earlier in the year.
Something I had been doing all day before coming to the venue was humming “On the Hood”, which meant Matt Mays must be in town. Matt and his band, which consisted of many Wintersleep members took the stage around 10:20pm opening up with “Take it on Faith” and performing many hits such as “Travellin'”, “Terminal Romance”, “Tall Trees, Cocaine Cowgirl and more. Several tributes were made to the late-great Jay Smith throughout the night, one of which included loud applause, and tears during a line in “City of Lakes.”. It’s safe to say that Matt Mays is one of our best musical assets on the East Coast;.
While “Bigger Brighter Lights” entertained a late night crowd, many fans decided to retreat to the Acro Lounge for an after party with Alert The Medic, Matt Mays, members of Universal Soul and more.
Even after these two dye of music, fun partying and more, there was still Sunday, which would prove to be the busiest and also SOLD OUT night at the 2013 Jubilee.
Opening up the show was a performance by Fleur Mainville as well as Sprag Session which the crowd enjoyed as they made their way into the venue and got situated in their place near the front.
Finally, Dave Gunning took the stage to much excitement as fans cheered for his acoustic, east coast style songs that make any festival an amazing one, as I mentioned on Facebook “Dave Gunning always makes shows for me.”
Finally, 9:30 arrived and the sold out crowd all run for the stage to witness the pride of Atlantic Canada, Great Big Sea. Opening up with “Ordinary Day” which had the crowd dancing and screaming every word, the group played hits such as “England”, “The Night Pat Murphy Died” “When I get Up, I can’t get Down_ and many new songs. As was noted by Alan Doyle, this was the groups first ever show at the Jubilee and fans are definitely hoping that it won’t be their last. To close off another amazing Jubilee, The Divorcees kept things going for another couple of hours until well after midnight.
For fans of the Jubilee, It’s about way more than just the music, and while it is my goal to talk about all of the music of the weekend, I have to say that it’s just a great place to be, everyone comes to New Glasgow, hangs out with their friends, and just has the time of their lives, and if you have never been, you have to make sure to reserve the same weekend for next year.
Another thing that I noted were the unique food vendors, which included a stand where you could make your own pizza in a wood fired oven for only $10. I also applaud the festival for making water and other beverages very accessible and reasonably priced, which is the way it should be.
This has been my (and ACR’s) first ever Jubilee and as a whole we were just blown away by this festival and the amazing way that they make it something for everyone, which also included the children’s Jubilee and a songwriters circle on Saturday.
We cannot wait to return next year and see what the Jubilee has in store for us in 2014, it seems music fans really want to see The Tragically Hip in the future, and it’s said that the group will be touring next summer.
Who would you like to see in 2014? Comment!