For the Squamish Valley Music Festival, everyone came out for the artist lineup, but stayed for the weather, free water and friendly atmosphere.
The fifth annual Squamish Valley Music Festival from Aug. 8 to 10 blew up in size compared to past years. It nearly tripled its grounds — from 30 to 81 acres – and nearly doubled in attendance — from 19,000 in one day last year to 35,000 people who came out on Sunday alone.
“The artists are so impressed, and I think how do you not be in such a beautiful site?” said Laura Ballance, festival spokesperson. “It really shows our province so well.”
The festival unfolded over three sites: Centennial Field, Logger Sports Grounds and Hendrickson Fields interspersed with food trucks, camping sites, vendor setups, and four stages: Tantalus, Stawamus, Meadow and Blueprint Arena. The first two were reserved for the biggest acts, while the last two showcased up and coming bands and DJs.
“It’s been two years of planning, but decades of experience that have come together to create a really great event here in B.C.,” she said.
Where does Squamish fit in with this insurgence of festival attendees from across the globe? According to Ballance, a conservative estimate of $20 million is expected to have pumped into the local economy thanks to the three-day festival.
“We’ll see afterwards. We’ll be able to do some analytics around that,” she added. “The business community certainly seems happy with the impact the festival has brought, and I think that’s a combination of positive spin into the community and a fun-loving and very well-behaved festival for the most part.”
The three days went off without any major drawbacks, mostly thanks to the 550 security staff members — a mixture of plainclothes and visible officers who worked closely with the RCMP.
“The festival has been incredibly problem free,” she said. “We’re really pleased with the response to the event and to the lineup and how everything’s gone. I can’t say enough about it.”
While the festival itself ran smoothly for organizers with only a small fraction of festival goers quietly escorted off the premises by police, the collection of attendees ranged from all ages and backgrounds — from young partiers to families.
In its past incarnations on a smaller scale, the festival attracted big names such as Metric, the Tragically Hip, Matthew Good and Queens of the Stone Age, among other well-known bands with huge followings.
If I had to sum up this year’s musical lineup in one word, it would be diverse. The only thing the three headlining acts — Bruno Mars, Arcade Fire and Eminem — have in common is they’ve all won Grammy awards.
And all three thoroughly rocked the stage and their crowds of tens of thousands.
Bruno Mars was the first headliner up on the main Tantalus stage Friday night, and was a huge draw for the crowd as thousands of people pushed through to the front underneath two long lines of floating, lit balloons reaching up to the sky, periodically moved around by a man named Moonshine.
But when Arcade Fire took the stage with some band members rocking a large paper mache head each — replicating their actual ones – the excitement, joy and tenacity of the crowd was barely held back by the barricades on Saturday night. The Quebec-based band opened with tracks off their latest album, Reflektor, but continued to step back in time using their best hits — in my humble opinion – from Funeral, The Suburbs and even Neon Bible.
The first handful of songs were supercharged and high energy before switching gears with “Month of May,” and Arcade Fire wisely followed it up with slower tracks — but all had fans singing along. This is one of those rare bands that sound better live than digitally mastered.
The next big headliner on the stage who drew the largest crowd on the last day was “Bad Guy” Eminem. Despite the rough and tumble attitude one would expect from the crowd, the excitement to see an artist who hasn’t performed in B.C. for more than 10 years kept things focused and charged on the main stage — leaving the crowd in high spirits.
When the back of the giant stage released the black curtain that was up for the whole festival, it revealed a large tape deck boom box projected to the back, which would also be lit up with different backgrounds — from a gothic cathedral to a courthouse with a Roman-architecture façade.
Marshall Mathers played a wide array of his greatest hits, and engaged the crowd during them — although addressing them as Vancouver. Tokyo Police Club made the same mistake, but who could blame them?
I have to say the most impressive moment of all three headliners was when Eminem actually rapped his high-velocity track, “Rap God.” The other highlight from his set was when half of his hip hop duo, “Bad Meets Evil,” Royce da 5’9” took the stage to perform alongside Eminem.
But all the acts hit the right notes, from up-and-comers like the local band The Oceanographers, to the longtime fan favourite Arctic Monkeys – another key performance — to, my personal favourite, The Roots. Not enough can be said about The Roots, other than they absolutely took down the Stawamus stage with their crushing performance.
Squamish fest organizers were aiming to attract attendees from as many genres as they could — and they succeeded.
