Music festivals can be described as hectic, stressful, chaotic, and one of the most adrenaline-filled performances for the bands involved. On more than one occasion I was told by various bands that large festivals like the S.C.E.N.E festival in St. Catharine’s herald the best performances of their careers. Scott Middleton from the Cancerbats, a Toronto band, agreed with this fact, stating “As a band and talking to our friends who are also in bands, there’s this thing that goes around that after S.C.E.N.E fest everyone talks about that the show that they played... most bands that I talk to are like ‘that was the best show we’ve ever had’ and it’s always such a good, positive vibe and these kids are always so excited.”
Festival goers fit that description almost exactly; there was no way I could estimate how many people accompanied me in partaking in all the festival had to offer. The S.C.E.N.E Festival has been a yearly event in St. Catharine’s since 1995, where 20 local acts performed on 3 local stages. This contrasts heavily with the festival present-day, as 150 bands turned out on 15 stages, making this an event of incredible magnitude. The festival was held on June 29th and innumerable people showed up, some with tickets pre-paid (25 dollars at Ticketmaster or local record shops) or they paid at the door (30 dollars). Numerous bars that housed these acts opened their front windows so that the bands could play to people on the street; the sounds overlapped into a sort of surreal harmony that plagued downtown St. Catharine’s for a greater part of the day. Bands were primarily from the Southern Ontario area, but there were some American acts as well as one band flying from British Columbia, ironically, in between interviews with bands, this band (Daniel Wesley) was the only one I ended up seeing. The town was simply overrun with teens and young adults, whose clothing ranged from “normal” to outlandish, depending on their devotion to the “scene” or their desire for attention. The male population seemed dwarfed by the female fans and their rabid fangirl-ism for the bands wearing all-too-tight jeans and scultped hairdos. While interviewing Alex from illScarlett these girls had no qualms about interrupting my interview for pictures and autographs, and Alex didn't seem to mind it either. He was a bit pompous, wearing dark sunglasses that were detrimental to my attempts at conversation and he didn't seem all too enthusiastic about being interviewed in the first place; being famous must be difficult.
I talked to Liam Cormier (also of the Cancerbats) about the sheer masses of fans involved in the day, and he agreed that it exposes people to bands that they normally wouldn’t listen to. “It gets people to come to town, spend the day in your town, see a million bands... Where else can you do that all in one day?” “You’re walking down the street, see the band that you know you liked, then you hear something else that you might like, so you just hop in there for a song or two and ‘Who’re these guys’, you know?” Liam continued, “It’s such a good feeling and it can just grow and continue.”
Hamilton was represented at the S.C.E.N.E festival for a number of acts such as Circuit for the Blackout, Ginger St. James, Dean Lickyer, Teenage Head, The Reason and Threat Signal. Each of these acts put on amazing shows at their respective venues. The bands I got to talk to agreed that festivals such as these were essential to getting exposure. I had a chance to talk to Circuit for the Blackout, and their guitarist Darren Marranca had this to say: “I think it’s great actually, because there’s tons of kids everywhere.” He continued, “Kids walking by, they hear something outside and they’re just like ‘Oh, I like this.’ It’s totally good exposure.”
Sadly the day was overshadowed by dark clouds that hovered around our heads ominously, opening up a number of times and smiting the festival revellers with rain and thunder. A building adjacent to the main “D-Tox Market Square Stage” was hit by lighting, prompting the fire department’s involvement. However, the only delay came due to the rain, with most of the headlining bands performing an hour later than they usually would. The majority of the fans took refuge in the merchandize area, which surprisingly fit most of them quite well. Performances started about 2:30 in the afternoon (after the rain delay), and carried on until approximately 2:30 in the morning. This was bit befuddling to me and the bands I talked to alike, because there was no holiday the next day; people with jobs would be missing work when the organizers could have just planned the festival one day earlier, on the Saturday.
As most of these Hamiltonian bands in attendance performed (or still perform) at the Casbah and The Underground, it’s interesting to see them performing outside of the city and for a much larger audience. As festivals like S.C.E.N.E Festival continue to be held across the country, they will continue to provide exposure for local music that might not otherwise. They’re events for people to experience music that they might not see otherwise, and a generally positive experience. As S.C.E.N.E Fest was this writer’s first festival, he would heavily recommend fans of the genre to check it out next year; maybe one of Hamilton acts will be headlining in that time. The atmosphere was interesting to be witness to, as for a scene that gets a lot of flak for being callous and uninviting to newcomers, the people present on Sunday were nice, kind, and accommodating to people of all musical tastes and talents. While talking to Gord Lewis of Teenage Head, he told me that this wasn’t an unusual phenomenon. “Everybody treated us okay. Kids are pretty open minded. They’re kind of intimidating at times, but when you get in there [to their minds] they’re usually okay.”
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