UPS, DOWNS OF FESTIVAL GIGS
Travelling, meeting new audiences are great; rained out shows less so
This year, American neo-soul outfit Nathaniel Rateliff and the Night Sweats headlines the longrunning Burnaby Blues + Roots Festival.
Other notables include roots/ Americana singer/songwriter Nikki Lane, eight-piece R&B band The Suffers, and indierock/folk combo Rural Alberta Advantage.
Consisting of Nils Edenloff on lead vocals and guitar, Amy Cole on keyboards, bass, and backing vocals, and Paul Banwatt on drums, the Toronto-based RAA, which formed in 2005, has released four albums, including last year’s The Wild. We talked to Edenloff on the highs and lows of playing the Canadian summer festival circuit, and that one with the wizard.
Q Have you done this before, where you take the summer off and just play festivals?
A That’s kind of the way it works. You put a record out and then if you’re fortunate you’re able to play some good festivals. That’s where all the shows are during the summer because people are all over the place. But this is one of the busier summers that we’ve had. There’s a lot of travel involved, but it’s a real treat to see new places and play for some great audiences all over Canada.
Q And it’s a good way to get in front of people who maybe haven’t seen you before?
A That’s always the hope, that you’re playing to different audiences. We’ve always been a band that excelled in the live show. It’s one of those things, if we get the opportunity to meet more people, then hopefully they’ll remember us the next time we come around.
Q What are the best and worst things about playing festivals?
A Well, there are thousands of people who wouldn’t necessarily have known about your band. And you get a chance to see some really amazing bands, playing the same festival or different stages. The hard thing is, you’re a slave to the weather. A couple of years ago there was a combination of shows in Calgary and Edmonton, and the Calgary show just got rained out. And the one in Edmonton was close to being rained out. So there is that. And when you’re playing festivals, you’re competing with a lot of other bands.
Q Have you noticed any changes in festivals since you started playing them? For instance, are they less genre-based?
A We’ve been getting a lot more opportunities and playing bigger and bigger stages, so we see that aspect. But there’s definitely been a growth in festivals as a lifestyle event, and in the number of bands that they’re bringing out. We played the
first WayHome (Music + Arts) Festival (near Barrie, Ont.) and Neil Young headlined one night, Kendrick Lamar the next night. It’s very different from what you’d see at a folk festival. That being said, the market’s a lot more competitive. We were supposed to play Pemberton last summer and that was cancelled. You see things like that happening, too. As much as the whole thing is opening up, and there are these bigger and bigger festivals, part of it ends up being unsustainable to a certain degree.
Q What was the smallest festival you’ve ever played, where maybe you were expecting it to be bigger than it actually was?
A When we were starting out, there was some sort of festival up in, I don’t know, the Bruce County area (in southwestern Ontario) or something. We showed up and it was way smaller than we expected, it was a fly-by-the-seat-of-its-pants kind of thing. At the time, we didn’t have a record out, we were looking after ourselves, we didn’t know what we were getting into, I don’t think we ended up getting paid for it either — we showed up and there was some guy dressed as a wizard. It was just a very odd festival.