Live at Squamish eclectic and folk-inclusive
Live at Squamish, a three-day event hosted from August 24-26, was a superb combination of two great elements: music and the outdoors. This year's festival procured a distinctly Canadian line-up with familiar bands and musicians close to home, including The Tragically Hip, Lights, City and Color, the Rural Alberta Advantage, and Chromeo.
Located in the heart of Squamish, surrounded by the natural landscapes and ragged cliffs, locals and long-distance travelers alike gathered together to celebrate music and jam packed days of non-stop activities. Artists and vendors were heavily frequented by concert-goers and provided entertainment in between acts. Vancouver-based talent Scott Sueme was part of a live art exhibition. Sueme, whose roots are founded on using spray paint to create abstract pieces of graffiti, works out of ACME Studios in the Downtown Eastside with five other artists who also displayed work at the festival.
This work-in-progress piece by Sueme is in collaboration with another artist who focuses on collage work.
The music genres at the festival were eclectic and folk-inclusive. LP delivered a thunderous set with an incredible range of octaves that wooed the audience before sundown. Mixed in with crowd favorites' Tokyo Sunrise and Into the Wild, LP's rendition of Beyonce's Halo was unique and had fans singing along in excitement.
Lights followed suit with a new crowd-pleasing electronic dub sound. Clad in a black romper, Lights played out the fading sunset with tracks from her new album, Siberia.
Chromeo, an electro-funk duo, ended off Saturday night with a fist-pumping, strobe-flashing, mosh-pit inducing performance. The pair, P-Thugg and Dave 1, from Montreal had an energetic performance after minutes of continuous “Chromeo, Oh, Oh” chants from Chromeo's opener "Intro".