Winnie Goes To: Live At Squamish
Now in it’s third year Live at Squamish took place this past weekend August 24th-26th. An hour out side of Vancouver the festival put on a “decidedly Canadian effort” with a strong offering of local and national acts set to the beautiful backdrop of the Stawamus Chief and the Garibaldi mountain in the picture perfect Squamish Valley.
A traffic accident delayed our arrival on Saturday getting in around 6pm and I missed one of the few non Canadian acts I was looking forward to, Charles Bradley. :( Here’s Charles playing a Canadian cover.
Vancouver’s Rococode played the Meadow stage.
Newly married, Justin of Philosoraptor throws down an upside down peace / being shitty sign.
Humans went on around 8:30pm or whenever it was on the smallest Meadow stage. Hopefully next year they are deserving upgraded to one the bigger stages. They did manage to pack out the audience as they delved into a set of mostly new material from their latest EP Traps.
They passed around the audience a cardboard cutout of group member Robbie supposedly from an upcoming music video. The crowd eventually took over the small stage and as the group launched into their crowd favorite Avec Mes Mecs for their last song. Halfway through the performance was cut short as one of their cables came undone. It made for an abrupt but suiting finish with the crowd chanting the hook “who knew all we had to do was party” as the group left the stage.
Next up Le Tragically Hip on the main stage. I hated The Tragically Hip growing up. I think I mostly hated their fans. It was not very Nirvana which was all I was into at the time. The group have grown on me and I think they hold a deserving spot in the highest echelon of Canadian music royalty. They are something quintessentially Canadian in an Ontario, Great Lakes group of seven I just threw up in my mouth and ate it kind of way.
This is maybe the most Canadian song of all time other than Oh Canada and The Hockey song if that is indeed a Canadian song. They teach it to small kids in schools and flunk kids if you don’t know all the words.
The Tragically Hip – Bobcaygeon
I had yet to see them live, it was quite a treat. Some bb showed her explodingly large fake boobs. Gord Downey was delightfully weird and entertaining appearing ageless fronting the group who are now in their 29 years. It’s always a disappointment when a group with such a large back catalog play too much new material but the group stuck to a delightful 2/3 old stuff/hits, crowd pleasing formula.
Bromeo-whoooah. Closing things out for the night, Montreal’s Chromeo kicked things into high gear on the Garibaldi stage.
Chromeo – Don’t Turn The Lights On
Some bro crowd surfed ON A surf board. There should be a special term for this. Bruhfing??
Some burlesque bb’s danced. Hi bb.
Afterwards we departed to an after party at 100.5 soon to be 102.7fm The Peak‘s Tamara Stanners’ house. She is quite the gracious host and knows how to throw a bonfire party.
The party was quickly upgraded by Tamara to a “palate fire” who seemed no stranger to danger as the flames jumped 8ft in the air.
She initiated the name game with all of the people around the fire, a lot of whom were musicians from the festival and Peak Performance project acts. I think I introduced myself and explained that I was celebrating Bob Marley’s (RIP BOB) birthday as my something no one else knows secret. Acoustic guitars were brought out and campfire songs sung.
Good For Grapes bros.
There was an actual Nickleback Motown cover band cleverly called Motown Nickleback there who also played the festival. They’ve raised money via Kickstarter to record their album! Open your hearts and let Chad in.
Tamara’s daughters Samantha and Alex. Alex plays music as Badger Child, chekitowt.
As 3am rolled around we decided to return to Vancouver. On the way home Underworld’s 12 minute lament Underworld – Born Slippy (Nuxx) was intense enough to keep 2 of 6 of us awake long enough to make it to Prospect Point in Stanley Park. My photography skills beyond shot by this time.
The clandestine once a year secret Raccoon party with the Glory Days djs Jason, Hana and Rico raged until the authorities showed up at 6:30am. Apparently they gave Jason of Olio Festival a ride with his gear back home or two his truck? I’m not sure which but either way I <3 the VPD.
pics and words by @tristanorchard
