Saturday October 27th

So Saturday is the day where nothing is going on (besides Fest itself obviously), so thats the day to sleep in, right? My body thinks differently and after only four hours of sleep I wake up. Hey at least I’m getting the most out of the free breakfast. Then I edit some photos and upload them for the Fest photo editor. Then I also go over the photo booth images. Don’t let your customers wait! We go into town at noon, a quick meeting at the Holiday Inn, food at Applebees, I manage to post the photo booth images from my phone. Buying more photo supplies at Best Buy, and then its time to see some bands again.
Robert and I get to CMC to see the Mixtapes acoustic set. When we get there its really crowded and so all we do is stand in the back. Its not really working for me, I don’t get into this. There is a mystery band listed to play after them, its the only one that has not been announced, so there are some rumors who it might be (I heard stuff like Joey Cape or The Measure (SA) reunion), none of which turn out to be true. In the end, nobody plays. Apparently nobody had been booked, or nobody could do it. Bummer.
So House Boat are up next. One of those few sets that I couldn’t miss under any circumstance. One of the best bands and live always good for some surprises. Pretty fun set, without any special events. But I’d love to see them play more often. Can they tour Europe please?

Across the street Banner Pilot are playing 8 Seconds. They also made my “don’t miss” list. I enjoy watching them. The night before I found this nice spot in the corner between the stage, the pit, the speakers where I can see everything really good and block nobodies view. Perfect photo location. I spent a good amount of the set just standing there.
Then its time to go Boca Fiesta/Palomino, a double venue, there are quite a bunch of bands I want to see playing there in a row. First of them are Candy Hearts, a little more on the lighter side of music for the weekend. But I’ve seen them at Insub Fest, and guitar player Christian has been posting on the same message board as me forever. Its really hard to get up front, so many people wanna see them, so I decide to pull out the long lens and shoot from the far back. Works fine.
After their set I sit outside, tired and resting. My brain can’t wrap itself around the fact that its barely 8 p.m. which means there are still five more hours ahead of me until the end of the night. The sleep deficit finally hits me. Robert and I leave and get some food and an energy drink, hoping it helps me to make it through the night. As we get back the Gateway District is about to start. The one time I saw them before they did not really get to me, but then their record came out and its really good. I manage to push myself to the front for some photos this time. Yet I only see about half their set, as I need to head out to CMC to see Mikey Erg.
It’s not a secret that I really love Mikey Ergs music. But I have seen him play a bunch of times and contemplated skipping his set, as it was exactly in between other sets I wanted to see. But when the time comes I decide to go none the less. As it turns out, that was the right decision. I get to CMC and position myself on the side of the stage, knowing Mikey wouldn’t mind. On one hand you could argue that his set was pretty much exactly what you’d expect him to play, and what I have seen before. Sounds kinda boring, right? But then again there were these singalongs and everybody just being passionate about his songs. He could have done this without PA, cause the entire crowd was louder than that anyways. I filmed the entire set, the first 17 minutes are just static footage, after that I picked up the camera.

The Mikey Erg set gave me exactly the boost and adrenalin rush I needed to recover from being a tired mess, so when I walked back to Boca I looked forward to seeing the Max Levine Ensemble. They played outside now to a good sized crowd. These guys music is so catchy and positive. How can you not like it?
Crusades are more on the darker side of pop punk, so they were a bit of contrast to TMLE, still they rocked out pretty great. Those Ottawa dudes are the best. Check out their own festival called Ottawa Explosion too!
Again I have to cut the set short a bit to go to 8 Seconds to see Lemuria. Love that band. Sheena gave me a free shirt earlier that day. Its an Ergs! tribute shirt, so how could I pass up the opportunity? I also meet Kendra there, hadn’t seen her all day. We end up singing Lemuria lyrics into each others faces. Good times. The crows loves them as well. At one point I look across the stage and see Todd, a fellow photographer, putting bunny ears on yet another photographer. Oh yeah, even us shooters like to have some fun in between.

After that I go to Durty Nellys again. But all I do is sit down at the bar, resting, drinking cola. The Fake Boys are playing, but I am not really paying attention. Sorry guys. To my defense I have seen you play Europe before. In Italy on tour with the Accelerators. I’m just not in the right condition right now.
Last band of the night are the Criminals. I know singer Jesse from the same message board mentioned above, plus he is a super nice guy. I even visited him at the Alternative Tentacles headquarters this summer. The Criminals are a much rawer band than most here. And their sound shows this. Jesse is a great energetic frontman and thats entertaining as fuck. Their set was equally terrible and great. Towards the end I think “wow, a band that played even less songs than House Boat!”. And then, as their time has already run out, they play like six more songs. Even the house lights were turned on at that point. Later I found out its Jesses birthday! Congrats Lushman!

Photos of the night can be found in the Gallery.