Unique acts set Weekender festival apart
The Phillips Backyard Weekender’s philosophy is based on a universal music-festival truth: If you book quality bands from stem to stern, regardless of genre, audiences will come out. All killer, no filler is the general idea.
“The headliners you end up with, you want to build around that, but it doesn’t necessarily mean the whole day is going to turn into reggae day or hip-hop day or roots-rock day,” said event co-producer Dimitri Demers of Atomique Productions.
“You need to keep things moving and changing and come up with artists which are complementary to each other, not just the same as each other. We’re not a genre-based festival — Alt-pop act Cake performs at the Weekender on Saturday, 8:30 p.m. we’re simply a festival.”
Since its inception five years ago, the Weekender has grown into one of the city’s most dependable outdoor music events. The three-day event in the back lot of Phillips Brewing & Malting Co. on Government Street has steadily grown its profile, tinkering with themes and up-andcoming acts before settling on a concept that checks several stylistic boxes. This year’s edition welcomes alt-rockers Cake, roots-rockers Current Swell and reggae act Common Kings beginning Friday, the first of three eclectic days of programming.
Demers has also booked several standouts that may be off the radar for some. That’s part of the appeal, he said. “I like unique acts. I don’t want the Weekender to feel like it’s the same festival as all the others this summer. We dig for the deep cuts.”
Notables include The One and Only PPL MVR, a group of Los Angelinos who perform dressed as yetis; Mariachi Flor De Toloache, an all-woman mariachi group from New York; and Common Kings, a California reggae band whose members have roots in Hawaii, Samoa, Fiji and Tonga.
Jamaica reggae favourite Junior Reid is perhaps the festival’s biggest coup, however.
“It’s a rare thing to get him out,” Demers said. “There’s only so many reggae legends left touring these days, so you’ve got to enjoy it when it happens.”
The festival has come a long way since its first edition, which came about somewhat by accident, Demers said. His eventproduction company, which produces the annual Rifflandia festival, had been offered a date for Australian group The Cat Empire. Atomique needed a venue bigger than a nightclub, so Demers called on the brewery.
“It is a ton of work to set Phillips up for just one day, so I called De La Soul and got them to come out, too. It turned out The Dirty Heads wanted to play the same date in Victoria, so we had a festival.”
The Weekender would be almost unrecognizable to those groups today. Friday marks the unveiling of The Picnic-er, to be held behind the brewery on Discovery Street, where surf shop and clothing store ANIÁN is located. Food trucks and picnictable seating — in addition to a stage showcasing 16 local acts over three days — will give fans a place to relax away from the main stage inside the Phillips Brewing & Malting Co. gates. All told, the festival site will be activated for an average of eight hours per day through the weekend.
“It’s similar to what we did with Electric Avenue [for the Rifflandia festival], but not quite the massive scale,” Demers said of the area on Discovery Street, which will be closed to vehicle traffic.
“The feedback we received, if there was one thing people really hoped would improve over the years was to give them somewhere to sit and chill. [The Picnic-er] is where you can go and have a bite, have a beer and chill out for a little bit.”
The site, which has a capacity of 3,000, has been expanded this year to allow for both The Picnicer and other improvements, the latest in a steady string of tweaks designed to make the Weekender better and the site more suitable for audiences.
“There’s plenty of room on the site overall,” Demers said. “The site has steadily expanded. Some of that had to do with the need for capacity, but a lot of it has to do with comfort. You don’t want to feel hemmed in everywhere.”