Edmonton’s hottest new festival is … Hot Plains Music Fest.
The three-day extravaganza, from May 17 to 19, features one of the city’s most reclusive and beloved bands, The Wet Secrets, soft-disco king Renny Wilson, blues-rockers Bombchan, soul-garage girls The Lad Mags, and Emily Rault’s retro machine, The Fortrelles. Oh, and one Vancouver band – Slam Dunk.
Aaron Getz is the founder of the festival, headquartered at two Whyte Avenue venues — including Wunderbar and the uber-hip men’s hair emporium, Barber Ha. Three-day passes are $40 at Barber Ha. Tickets will also be available at the shows — $10 for the daytime gigs, $15 for the nighttime.
“I have always wanted to do my part in helping seed a local music festival,” Getz explains. “The city is ripe for it. This is the first step towards building something bigger and better down the line.
“That said, this all came together in a short period of time after first approaching some friends in The Wet Secrets to play a show. When I realized it would fall onto the May Long weekend, it presented the option to host a three day event. I took that opportunity. Now there are five concerts and 17 bands throughout the weekend. For this year I am using the Hot Plains Music Fest as a means to showcase Edmonton’s premier rock bands. I sure am happy it came together as it did.”
As for the name of the festival, Getz credits musician/beard enthusiast Smokey Johnson, who designed the poster above. “I asked all my friends for ideas, crowd sourced on FB, but it was Smokey … that came up with it,” says Getz. ” I really dig it. May use it as a podcast name too.”
Smokey’s band, Field and Stream, is also scheduled to perform at Hot Plains.
With any luck, this festival will grow into something Edmonton’s SOS Fest could have been …
