I was going to post this earlier, but I keep forgetting to grab the images for it. So here it is without them.

Another Hillside Festival has come and gone. A bit of backround for those who don't know; Hillside is a music oriented festival in a GRCA park. It has four stages of varying sizes for music, as well as places for mostly environmental and spiritual workshops, though interesting workshops also exist. Probably the most interesting part of it all are the musical workshops they have, where artists that might not normally know each other get to play together for an hour.

What happened this year? I got to go with a much larger group of friends, which was a lot of fun, to play frisbee, dance with and generally relax in the proximity of good music.

Friday night's highlight was probably sitting down listening to Corb Lund, a pretty good Folk-Country band from Alberta. The 'No Escape From Reality' workshop was also a lot of fun. Final Fantasy made the workshop a lot of fun to watch. Of course we left early, so we could have time to hit up the Albion Hotel for drinks before we had to retire for bed and ready ourselves for another day -- it was Kelsie's birthday!

Saturday started with two more workshops, though nothing much really got happening until getting to see Final Fantasy and Torngat take the stage together. Since they already knew each other's music, it made it a pleasure to listen to, playing off each other's material. Some very relaxing music. Later on, the Hidden Camera's "reversal" was fun, but had frequent pauses as they tried to teach members of the audience to play along with them on stage on the tom drum, glockenspiel and tambourines. Luckily their main stage set the next day was a energetic good time. Cuff the Duke's set that day sounded really well. They played Hillside last year as well, and they sounded a lot heavier and less country. Though on reflecting about this now, I'm not sure if that is more in comparison to the amount of country listened to last year, of if that's how they were really playing. This year, however, they sounded more like the alt-country I like from them. They must have made a good enough impression, as the tent was packed and even Kevin decided to buy some of their wares. (A totally awesome belt-buckle). Right after them, Holy Fuck played an extremely energetic show with guest apperances ('because they weren't given any workshops') by Cadence Weapon and Final Fantasy.

The Final Fantasy set right after was a treat to listen to as well as watch, because you could see him forming each violin loop as the song built, not to mention the really fun cover of Mariah Carey's "Fantasy" with Gentlemen Reg (of Hidden Cameras). As the night progressed passed the really entertaining Final Fantasy set, while the Wintersleep set sounded really good, I was far to tired and had too much beer to really get into the spirit of things. Fortunately (?) the long bus wait and walk home helped things out for the next day.

The next day started off extremely well, with waffles, and later, the Gospel Hour. There was a workshop on the main stage with People's Republic and Cadence Weapon which sounded awesome, but I ended up going to the "Tenant's Rights" workshop to learn a little more of the ins and outs of not getting screwed over by landlords. The Austrian dub band Dubblestandart I had heard nothing about, but since Republic of Safety weren't terribly exciting, I'm really glad I ended up seeing them, as they were just awesome to see. As was the Tweleve Lane highway, which had a multitude of people (twelve, obviously) jamming in an incredibly fun session. Including the hilarious "Teeth solo", where all twelve on stage simply smiled. The rest of the day included bands I've mostly seen before, but were still fun to watch. Torngat, the previosly mentioned Hidden Cameras set and The Next Best Thing. though, in between that all, was the People's Republic, a band I should check out more, and a really fun time of throwing a frisbee around listening to Cadence Weapon.

All in all, a lot of good music, food and fun was had. Anyone around the Guelph/Kitchener/Waterloo/Cambridge area really should look into going if they ever get the chance!