Eight acts you can’t afford to miss at GAIN Music’s eighth annual festival
This week, GAIN Music’s eighth annual music and arts festival takes place across two nights and a bevy of venues in downtown Guelph. GAIN Music and Arts Festival is unique among Guelph festivals for the focus it puts on radio-friendly rock and heavier genres like post-hardcore and metal, but this year’s lineup also features a spectrum of sounds including psychedelia, soul, country, and R&B.
We combed through the lineup, and this is the result: eight acts to catch at the eighth annual GAIN Fest.
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Moscow Apartment
Brighid Fry and Pascale Padilla met as kids in Toronto’s VIVA! Youth Singers. Now in their teens, these two have been getting a ton of hype for their sharp songcraft, being included in Exclaim!’s Class of 2018 concert series.
Moscow Apartment plays Friday, March 9 at Red Brick Cafe.
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VIDA
VIDA delivers a driving post-hardcore sound that doesn’t sacrifice texture and nuance. Their bombastic instrumentals are complemented by Brian Gillis’ memorable golden roar, making their local reputation well deserved.
VIDA plays Friday, March 9 at Van Gogh’s Ear.
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Seas
Featuring members of Moneen (post-hardcore contemporaries of Alexisonfire), Seas cranks out polished pop-punk with a shade of emo and soaring melodies by the boatload.
Seas plays Friday, March 9 at DSTRCT and Saturday, March 10 at eBar.
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Crown Lands
Crown Lands is a fuzzy blues twosome that manages to bottle some of the magic of classic heavies like Led Zeppelin and Cream. They’ve got shaggy hair and shaggy hooks. Fans of The Black Keys and The White Stripes shouldn’t sleep on this one.
Crown Lands plays Friday, March 9 at DSTRCT Lounge.
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Lush Buffalo
Lush Buffalo combines solid pop-grunge riffage with a winking sense of humour and a manic live performance that’ll make you believe in rock’n’roll like you did when the School of Rock credits scrolled for the first time. Frontman Dylan James is a legend in the making.
Lush Buffalo plays Friday, March 9 at Jimmy Jazz.
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Band Of People
Band Of People wield a unique power thanks both to the virtuosic bass of Dylan White and the impassioned vocals of Shane Jacob Philips, whose sincere odes to justice put the soul back in soul music. They make doing good sound good.
Band Of People plays Saturday, March 10 at DSTRCT.
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Mumbolayo
Mumbolayo’s breezy psychedelic pop is so laidback you almost don’t notice how precisely it’s put together. Kyle Bodi’s gloomy croak is the musty cherry on the cake.
Mumbolayo plays Saturday, March 10 at eBar.
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Digawolf
Hailing from Yellowknife, Digawolf combines throwback rock’n’roll instrumentals with the ragged bark of vocalist Diga, who growls his lyrics in a combination of English and the language of the Tlicho nation from the Northwest Territories. It’s a bold, distinctive flavour of Canadiana — one we need more of.
Digawolf plays the GAIN Fest wrap-up event Sunday, March 11 at Brothers Brewing.
Photo courtesy of Gain Music