With over twenty-five bands spread out over three days, the inaugural Gridlock Festival made a positively chill and certifiably dank first impression on festival-goers in the downtown Halifax area. Drawn in by the buzz of headlining acts American Football and Wolf Parade, it was the depth of artistic talents and curated attractions that turned a mere high-school parking lot into a festival punching well above it’s first-year weight class. Continue reading Halifax Celebrates Gridlock The First
All posts by Jeff Arbeau
In Review: TNB’s ‘Returning Fire’
Welcome to our review of Returning Fire by local playwright Ryan Griffith. Continue reading In Review: TNB’s ‘Returning Fire’
Shivering Songs And The Pursuit Of Winter Happiness
Mid-winter in the downtown core of Fredericton has a capricious disposition: the windchill flickers between pacific and caustic, the sidewalks are littered with icy pitfalls, and and our doses of heavy snowstorm seem wildly irregular. In spite of all this, the weather held at a moderate breeze over the weekend, and the temperature seemed to rise a few degrees for those of us who took in this year’s Shivering Songs festival. Continue reading Shivering Songs And The Pursuit Of Winter Happiness
Dillon Anthony’s Four Stories LIVE
Dillon Anthony is set to take the stage.
Having been a fixture in both the rock band Kill Chicago and, more recently, performing with singer/songwriter Cedric Noel, Dillon Anthony is prepared to take over TNB‘s new theatre space on Friday to deliver something a bit more conceptual and intimate. Four Stories Live will be a special live performance of Anthony’s Four Stories EP, a collaborative effort that brought to life four stories entwined. “All four of the songs connect, and I’ve chosen to leave it up to the listener to see how they connect” he says, “in some ways subtle and others fairly obvious.” Continue reading Dillon Anthony’s Four Stories LIVE
Retrospective: Wooden Wives (2005-2015)
“Sunset and evening star,
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea.”
— “Crossing the Bar” Alfred Lord Tennyson
For a lot of us, Wooden Wives has been a fixture in the Saint John landscape, a benchmark for experimentation, collaboration, and what the local music scene can achieve by rolling up its sleeves. If you’ve gone to nearly any two shows in the Port City, chances are you’ve seen somebody play three sets by now. Hyperbole aside, this is the collaborative nature of the arts in Saint John, and for my five cents Wooden Wives embodies this ethic of building together and facilitating a thriving arts community. Continue reading Retrospective: Wooden Wives (2005-2015)