By Adam Bowie
There’s no question that one of the best things about Fredericton’s Harvest Music Festival is the collective breadth and depth of the lineup each year.
For Atlantic Canadian music fans, it’s the only place you’ll find Grammy-winning acts like Jason Isbell & The 400 Unit, Victor Wooten, and Warren Haynes. Where you’ll find Texas rockers like Spoon and Alejandro Escovedo, or a slew of Canadian legends such as Big Sugar, Feist, Broken Social Scene, Julie Doiron, the Paul Langlois Band, Matthew Good, the Jim Cuddy Band, July Talk, Colin James, and Matt Minglewood.
Still, one of my favourite things about the event each year is that it’s an opportunity to find exciting emerging acts – bands that may be flying slightly under the radar, and are about to break out in a big way.
If you’re looking for a few suggestions, a few tips on bands that could quite possibly become your next favourite act, here are a few contenders – in no particular order:
LANEY JONES & THE SPIRITS
The first thing that grabs you about this 32-year-old rocker is her voice.
Even though it sounds sweet, it also has a touch of sandpaper, and it sounds like it belongs to an experienced veteran of the stage – not a rising star.
I’m going to do my best to catch her early-evening set on Sept. 13, and I’m hoping she plays, “Secret Weapon,” one of the best I’ve heard from her band.
GA-20
Most Harvest fans will remember that when The Record Company first came to Harvest, they were virtually unknown, and frontman Chris Vos even told me once that the band
had been struggling at the time and thinking about packing it in. But after a successful showing, one that saw them warmly embraced by local music-lovers, they pressed on, and finally found some sturdier footing in the music industry. They’ve returned multiple times since, and they have become a fan-favourite act at Harvest.
If I was a betting man, I think GA-20 could possibly follow a similar path. Hailing from Boston, and with a Chicago-blues sound that would line up nicely with The Record Company and The Black Keys, GA-20 could be the next Harvest sleeper. Wondering what’s up with the name? The name is a reference to the Gibson guitar amp that was manufactured between 1950 and 1961.
TOO MANY ZOOZ
Looking for a way to release your stress, shake off the worries of your day, and just move your body? These guys can help you out. The band calls themselves “brass house,” mixing jazz, funk, electronic dance and house
music into a high-energy sound that makes you want to dance. The next time you’re scrolling through YouTube, check out the viral video they made for, “Bedford,” which sees them rocking out on the subway. Incredibly fun. This is going to be quite a time.
CONNOR FOX
One of my favourite shows from last year’s Harvest was the blues jam featuring Fredericton guitarist Connor Fox and PEI’s Logan Richard. If you weren’t there at The Cap that night, you missed out. Simply stunning – both for the guitar-work and the soulful vocals. I still think about the J.J. Cale cover they did – like, a lot.
Since then, Mr. Fox has dropped his first solo album – called Music Room – and continued playing with his band, The Hypochondriacs. Music Room is a bit of a hodge-podge of musical ideas, and somehow it just works. It’s a fun listen from an artist who’s still having fun exploring and creating new compositions, and I can’t wait to see where this young man goes next.
He’ll take the stage in the Barracks Tent on Sept. 14 – helping to warm up the stage for Apollo Suns and Too Many Zooz.
THE CHANTERELLES & SARAH HARMER
I think this sounds like an amazing way to close out the festival – to kick back in comfortable seats at The Playhouse and listen to Canadian folk legend Sarah Harmer and three of New Brunswick’s sweetest voices in The Chanterelles.
Hope to see you there!
You can buy tickets to these, or any other show, RIGHT HERE!
A bit about the Author:
Adam Bowie used to write stories and a weekly music column for the Daily Gleaner newspaper. He’s also a former juror for the Polaris Music Prize, the Juno Awards, the East Coast Music Awards and the Music New Brunswick Awards. Now, he works in communications and volunteers with the Harvest Music Festival.