Top-notch talent coming this way
Canaan Mountain Music Festival to bring star-studded talent to Annapolis Valley
A properly executed festival with a top-notch talent lineup will no doubt be music to the ears of country fans across the Annapolis Valley and beyond.
The Canaan Mountain Music Festival is Aug. 11 at 1005 Canaan Mountain Road. Darryl Landry, one of the organizers, said the festival’s main stage will come alive with a star-studded lineup including “some big talent unlike the Valley has seen in a long, long time.”
The co-headliners are legendary Canadian band Blue Rodeo and well-established country star Tim Hicks, who is currently taking the country world by storm. They’ll be joined by the River Town Saints, Jimmy Rankin and Tristan Horncastle.
Landry said Horncastle is an up-and-coming country artist out of New Brunswick and Rankin, a Nova Scotia icon, is always a crowd pleaser and it’s great to have him on board. The Ottawabased Saints promise to deliver a dynamic live performance.
There have been what Landry describes as “pilot projects” during the past few years to test the music festival waters in Annapolis Valley, including the inaugural Canaan Mountain festival in 2016.
He said the first event was held to test the appetite in the Valley to see what the level of fan, community, and business support would be. The show was great and enjoyed rave reviews from fans but there was room for growth and improvement.
Ideal venue
With the population density between the Halifax Regional Municipality and the Valley, the burgeoning wine industry and an abundance of natural beauty, a Valley venue lends itself well to this type of event.
“I do believe personally the Valley is so strategically located and is such a beautiful part of our province that it is ideal,” Landry said.
He believesthere remains room for growth and to build on the festival’s success, considering there are much smaller communities in New Brunswick and PEI hosting big shows. Landry said there’s no reason why Nova Scotia couldn’t establish a flagship, mainstream country-soft pop festival that could probably draw twice the number of people who will attend this year.
Landry said the 2018 show would be done properly. There will be appropriate eight-foot fencing set up and the main stage, complete with video screens, will be twice the size they had for the first festival.
New campground experience
Landry said there would be a smaller stage set up at the festival campground featuring local performers leading into the festival on Aug. 10, something exclusively for those camping out. He said there is some great talent lined up, including Canaan’s own East Coast Music Award winner Kevin Davison, and more to be announced.
He said another thing they learned from the pilot project is that there are very few hotel accommodations in the Valley area. They received a lot of feedback from people who couldn’t find a place to stay. Area campgrounds even filled up. Landry said this led to the decision to provide a camping option for between 500 and 700 festival goers. He said many music fans would love this experience.
“I think it adds another element to what the experience can be moving forward,” Landry said.
Davison on board
Davison said the Canaan Mountain field is a beautiful location for a concert. He was the first act ever to perform at the venue in 2016. Everything is now lined up for the 2018 event, which will also feature a number of food vendors.
He said performing in the Valley always feels great and hits home for him.
“I still love playing here and people know my music and even my patients at work on the ambulance know me,” Davison said. “Now that I’m part of both, I’m a performer and now I’m helping out with this concert, it just makes it all that much sweeter for me.”