Something was in the air at the dawn of 1999. Perhaps the impending fear of the Milennium bug, combined with the looming excitement of finally being that much closer to The Future, led to a wide variety electronic music festivals suddenly popping up around Canada, in celebration of the ever-growing influence of technology in our music.
In Canada, some spectacular summer festivals took root. The MUTEK festival in Montreal, Evolve festival in Nova Scotia, and Soundwave on Vancouver Island.
Of those fests, MUTEK and Evolve are still going strong, while Soundwave sadly succumbed to the temptations of corporate whiles, its organizers opting to stop after 11 years, leaving the land free for new developments to start a new festival nearby called the Kulth.
The two fests still standing are both bigger and better than ever.
This year I had the pleasure of performing at and attending the Evolve festival, out in the styx of Nova Scotia on the far east coast. There is something magical about hearing music outdoors in a natural setting, especially on a clear night when you can see the sky full of stars. This year for the first time in 12 years, festival organizers lit up Chinese lanterns and released them into the sky. The golden colour of the flame was a perfect compliment to the yellow sickle moon.
With incredible sound on the two main stages, the festival’s performers unleashed their crowd-pleasing sounds: Dub FX laid down a sick layered looped dustup beatbox set, Pretty Lights funked it up with his reggae-rock-hip-hop influenced jams, Slowcoaster funked it down — those guys really sound like Sublime!! And all the while, hippies and ravers and techno people danced and mingled, breaking it up and breaking it down in their muddy rubber boots.