Saint John hosted yet another year of their music festival AREA 506 during the New Brunswick Day long weekend in August. Each year the festival has continued to pull in big names (often cherry-picking from Osheaga all for the benefit of the port city) and it has progressively been getting more and more impressive. This year they welcomed City and Colour, Interpol, Joel Plaskett Emergency, Matthew Good and The Rural Alberta Advantage to the stage, just to name a few.
If you’ve ever wondered how “Saint John” could possibly be a theme, you’ll figure it out when you show up to face stacked shipping containers as far as the eye can see.
AREA 506 is sort of the festival for non-festival goers. If you love live music but can’t stomach the typical festival scene, this just may be the one for you. Held just at the edge of Saint John’s uptown waterfront, the grounds are immaculately kept; full of security and corrugated steel. Trade in a field of tents for a couple massive ones, and well stocked coolers for beer kiosks. The festival abandons the freedom of DIY for the freedom of “leave it to us.”
AREA 506 goes so far as to become a one-stop-shop – a contained village within the city – with many of its shipping containers housing pop-up stores. You can find everything within the grounds except for a place to sleep. Vendors come from all over to display their goods, with vendors selling local clothing, gemstones, and artwork. The festival’s space for food trucks in the free entrance area could have been a festival all on its own. As usual, Monks and Jonesies in particular blew the socks off the festival patrons.
Of course, food vendors and merchants are just the tip of the iceberg here, and even beyond the music, there was entertainment a plenty. The festival has kept up the practice of bringing in small scale circuses, just to display their talents for the crowd.
During the day, the music tent allows for plenty of space to move around; to come and go, to grab drinks, and take breaks, but by night everyone was packed in like sardines for the headliners. The location on the city’s former Coast Guard site provided tighter accommodations than their former Long Wharf location, and contributed to the intensity of the festival atmosphere. Fortunately, for those listeners who needed a little more breathing room, or a little leg rest there were still bleachers set up at the back away from the crowds.
When you do get up close to that stage though, we can say AREA 506 always goes all out with presentation. The lighting was very impressive, especially for the Interpol set, which pleased audiences, despite an unusually long set change.
Many of this year’s festival-goers seem to agree that it was the opening acts that showed up in full force. They captivated the smaller crowds, while the headliners largely fell flat. That’s not to say we didn’t enjoy them, but much of that enjoyment was simply due to appreciating the opportunity to see bands in person that we’ve long-loved, and not due to a particularly captivating performance.
With the local groups really raising with bar for their sets, the crowd’s response was measurable. Laughter and participation were at all time highs during The Galpines‘ set and Les Païens had everyone jiving along.
Many of the bands had never set foot in the Maritimes before, while others, like Sloan, are Maritime icons. Sloan brought their full stage presence – probably having the loudest sing-along set of the weekend as they performed several radio hits.
Hands down, Tokyo Police Club brought the most energy, which made them endlessly entertaining to watch.
Dave Monks gave it his all and had the complete attention of the crowd with his rocker antics.
The weekend closed out with City and Colour, whose set was ultimately a little sleepy, but the die hard fans didn’t seem to mind.
Overall the festival was incredibly well organized, professional and well done. AREA 506 is sleek and gives the city a great justification for a staycation during the long weekend. It’s definitely one that deserves to be on your annual list of to-dos.
Remember folks, if you want to see even more photos from the festival and support Atlantic Canada arts and culture all at the same time, head on over to The East’s Patreon.