Hollerado at the Kitchissippi Music Festival
Saturday was a busy day for me. Following an afternoon at Finish What You Started Fest, Tanya and I packed our bags and headed out past Renfrew to Wilderness Tours for the Kitchissippi Music Festival.
We set up our tent on a friend’s parent’s property, where our friends were already camping, and then set off on our adventure. After an hour-long walk, which took us through farmers’ fields and to the wrong rafting company, we finally found ourselves at Wilderness Tours.
So excited to finally be there we ran up to a security guard and asked him where the festival was? He explained we had another ten minutes or so on foot ahead of us. So we did what any thirsty adult would do on a Saturday night, stop in at the bar for a beer before walking over. Much to our delight there was a gentleman busking at the bar playing mostly 90’s alt. Made my day when he pulled out “If You Could Only See“” by Tonic.
Thirst quenched, it was time to find our friends and see Hollerado. The boys from Manotick have never disappointed any time I’ve seen them and this was no exception. They played a bunch of tracks ranging from their latest release White Paint to songs like “Juliette” and “AMERICANARAMA” from the album that started it all, Record in a Bag. They also tossed in a cover of Neil Young’s “Rockin’ in the Free World.” (Video will be up on our Youtube which is coming soon!) The raining confetti, the sweet lighting and the brisk breeze by the water made for quite the spectacle.
I mentioned the boys are originally from Manotick but now live in Toronto, because they are rock stars. However, they have not lost their Ottawa pride. “We live in Toronto now, but don’t worry we are not Leafs fan,” said the lead singer, Menno Versteeg. “The best part of living in Toronto is letting elevator doors close on people who are running for it because I know they are Leaf fans.” A majority of the crowd erupted in support.
They closed out the night in a truly epic fashion. The band was joined by a bunch of people on stage and played “Blister in the Sun” by The Violent Femmes, “Damn It” by Blink 182, and finally “Ho Hey” by The Lumineers.
With the rocking complete, we gathered the troops and headed back to camp… which was an adventure in and of itself, but Showbox is not the place for those details.