MAKING STRIDES AND STRUGGLING TO FIND ITS IDENTITY
The fourth edition of what has become an annual event boasted the most successful festival yet for the Squamish Valley Music Festival. Whereas 2012 saw roughly 10,000 attendees per day, 2013 brought in a whopping 17,000 per day, no doubt a result of bringing in larger headlining names like Vampire Weekend and Queens of the Stone Age. This bodes well ahead of the recently announced plans to move the festival to larger grounds next year with a max capacity of 35,000 and the promise of larger headlining names. The festival, however, may be expanding too rapidly for its own good as it appears to be suffering from an identity crisis.
Thursday got off to a rocky start for the festival, as it brought an unprecedented amount of campers on Thursday evening. An estimated 4,000 campers showed up, reportedly 2,000 more than organizers were expecting. This led to more than a two-hour-long lineup to receive camping passes, gates opening late, as well as vendors and sponsors not being able to make it for the evening due to traffic. While the Thursday night headlining set by Matt Mays was well received, there was a general feeling of uneasiness from festival goers.
By the time gates opened on Friday though, those feelings were gone. Gates opened right on time and many were excited to get inside bright and early. It also was very apparent many festival goers decided to dip into some drinks, or indulge in various substances, before even heading into the festival grounds. Walking in, I was approached by a stocky guy wearing no shoes who said to me, “You know what rhymes with shoes? Shrooms!” He then proceeded to attempt to draw a penis on the trunk of a car. It didn’t look like a penis at all. This set the tone for the atmosphere of the festival over the weekend.
After exploring the festival grounds for a bit and taking note of the excellent selection of food vendors the festival brought in, the first band I checked out was Deap Vally on the Garibaldi Stage (the secondary stage). For the uninitiated, they are a two-piece female garage rock duo and guitarist Lindsey Troy has a serious knack for killer guitar tones and catchy riffs. After that, Abbotsford’s Jordan Klassen played a short-but-sweet set for a sizable audience on The Market Square stage, the small stage which was there to show off Vancouver talent. Dan Mangan then took to the Stawamus Stage (the main stage) to the delight of many. The field was packed and Mangan played a hits-filled set to a content audience.
Jurassic 5, however, was the first real spark of genuine energy and life from the crowd at the festival. The veteran hip hop group dominated the Garibaldi Stage from the moment they walked on and within minutes of the show starting, the crowd was jumping, dancing, waving their hands in the air, and pumping their fists. Nothing could have prepared the audience for what was about to come next though. When Macklemore & Ryan Lewis took to the Stawamus Stage, the crowd’s energy went off the charts and the entire field lost their mind for just over an hour. Say what you want about the “Thrift Shop” hitmakers, Macklemore is a rock star and they know how to energize a crowd.
Around the time Macklemore & Ryan Lewis’ set finished, it was also clear the Dionysian excess was only beginning to get into full swing. More people were stumbling and slurring, pupils were widening and the air smelled funnier than before. While waiting for Vampire Weekend to begin, I was asking people who their favorite sets of the day were. Many had just arrived in time for Macklemore and many others told me they had never heard of most of the other acts on the line-up. Many laughs were had in these conversations and they were all wonderful people, however, I began to question their motives for attending the festival.
Vampire Weekend
Finally, it was time for the Friday evening headliners to take to the stage. Vampire Weekend is a band that receives an unfair amount of backlash due to their quick rise to fame, but I would be surprised if any naysayers didn’t retract their statements after watching the band perform. The New York-based quartet is just an absolute delight to watch live and it is impossible resist their charm. The band is one of the tightest live bands around today and the set was filled with crowd-pleasers from all three albums and they knew exactly when to bring the energy up and down. The crowd danced and swayed and it was hard to not see a smiling face leaving the set.
The night was not done yet though. An attempt to see A Tribe Called Red in the Woodshed, the electronic music stage, proved futile as it was a limited capacity 19+ zone and the line-up was far too long to get in (Pemberton anyone?), so I opted for Vancouver’s Basketball. While an otherwise fantastic band, Basketball’s music is not made for music festivals and, despite their best efforts, it was hard for the band to get any life out of the crowd. Over on the Garibaldi stage Madeon, the 19-year old EDM prodigy, was entertaining the masses by putting on a high energy, hit filled set with remixes including everything from Kanye West’s “Black Skinhead” to Blur’s “Song 2.”
As the festival ended in the main grounds, it continued relentlessly in the campground. Anyone who attempted to sleep before 3 a.m. tried in vain, as drum circles persisted, loud games of beer pong endured and games of kickball in the dark happened at the onsite baseball diamond. It was clear this was partiers’ paradise.
I arrived early on Sunday to charge my phone at a charging station and struck up a few conversations with some very worn down looking festival goers. It was here I realized the festival was in a dire situation. Nearly every person I talked to fully admitted they only knew two or three names on the line-up and came because they wanted to party.
Music festivals are supposed to be a party. They are a place where like-minded people get together to celebrate the connection between music and life. They are a place where you can let loose, free your mind and dance your cares away. However, when substances become the main reason for attending a music festival and music is the afterthought, the festival itself becomes cheap and hallow.
Back to the music for a minute though, Yukon Blonde kicked off the Stawamus Stage with a fun set that was somewhat overshadowed by a fan that was called out by the band and then subsequently dog-pilled by police and security guards. Baths, England’s The Heavy took the stage next putting on an impressive set of their retro R&B/ soul revival tunes. A surprising amount of people in the crowd knew all the words to the songs, including a very zealous fan who stood on the hands of the crowd, shouting them back at lead singer Kelvin Swaby. Next, Vancouver’s The Ballantynes fit themselves onto the small Market Square stage and entertained a sizable audience, relative to the generally small turn-out for the stage across the weekend. American-Canadian band Divine Fitz, a Spoon/ Wolf Parade side project, took to the Stawamus stage next and while the band played a great set, their sound was swallowed up by the main stage. This, however, was not a problem for New York Gypsy Punk’s Gogol Bordello. Frontman Eugene Hutz whipped the crowd into a frenzy, creating what was likely the most high energy set at the Stawamus stage over the whole weekend. Later, over at the Garibaldi stage, Troy Barnes… I mean, Donald Glover… I mean, Childish Gambino performed to a crazy packed and excited audience, turning the field into a giant dance party.
After Band of Horses finished their set at the Stawamus stage, fans swept in to claim their spots quickly for the main event of the evening, Queens of The Stone Age. Josh Homme and his desert crew took to the stage and opened up with the monstrous Songs For The Deaf album cut “Millionaire,” to rapturous applause. The set was more of less a greatest hits set sprinkled with songs from the band’s new album … Like Clockwork. Also, in Josh Homme fashion, he got into an altercation when a fan jumped onstage, which prompted him to immediately stop singing and push the fan offstage, as well as the security guard who came to grab the fan. Josh Homme brought the set to a close with the crushing “Song For The Dead” and while the set ended 10 minutes early, it gave people time to collect themselves after a solid set by a group of rockers who know how to get the job done.
Saturday was then officially brought to a close by festival veteran Pretty Lights. The 6’8” electronic music producer has become known for his original style of mixing hip hop beats, electronic synth, and vintage soul and funk samples, as well as his highly visual light show which surely lives up to his name. After his highly danceable set came to a close, festival goers dispersed. However, much like Friday night, the night was nowhere near over yet for the campers.
Overall, the festival, aside from Thursday night hiccups, was well run and those working the festival seemed to know what they were doing. With that being said, if this festival is to expand like it is planned to, there is much work to be done in terms of establishing an identity for the festival.
The identity of a music festival is a hard thing to describe, but an easy thing to feel. The people, amenities, art installations, the quirks, and of course the bands, all contribute to the festival’s identity and a sort of “vibe” is created that connects all of these factors. Each is unique, but a common thread between all music festivals, is the love of music. While engaging in various substances has been long tied to the identity of music festivals in a general scope, when the desire for hedonistic excess overcomes the celebration of music, the festival finds itself lost and without purpose. There was no “vibe” at the 2013 edition of the Squamish Valley Music Festival. Instead, what you found was a field where bands performed, populated by a contingent of people who didn’t really care who was playing and overcome by a desire to party.
The two don’t have to be mutually exclusive though. It is possible to be a lover of music and have the desire to experiment and party at a music festival. However, when the music aspect of a music festival is ignored, the festival is no longer serving its purpose.
To be perfectly clear, the festival was a lot of fun, it was well run for the most part, and the food vendor selections were phenomenal. My big critique, simply put, is that the festival lacked a sense of identity. It is still a young festival and has time to grow and find itself, however, if some major changes are not made in terms of who the festival books and the audience it aims itself at, it will become known as a haven for partiers and the Squamish Valley Music Festival could find itself in B.C. music festival history next to the ill-fated 2008 Pemberton Music Festival.
By: Joshua Erickson
Photos courtesy: Jamie Sands (Abort Magazine)