culture
Hardcore Punk Festival Takes Over Toronto this Weekend
In its fifth year, the Not Dead Yet festival features punk bands from around the world.
Photo by from Una Bèstia Incontrolable’s Facebook page.
As a music city, Toronto is defined by its architecture. Some might say that the festivals it hosts are lacking, but this overlooks what the city does offer. Its wide array of smaller venues makes certain types of festivals succeed; NXNE and Canadian Music Week both feature a series of concerts held in intimate spaces across the city that allow smaller bands to get a bigger platform. And it’s in this spirit that hardcore punk has the Not Dead Yet festival this weekend.
“We started it after Fucked Up stopped doing their Halloween weekend,” explains Sarde Hardie, co-organizer of NDY, which runs from October 22 to 25. “Greg felt the festival should continue,” she says. “There would have been this void otherwise.” Hardie and Greg Benedetto started the festival five years ago, and have been running it ever since. According to Hardie, Canada is often isolated within the international music community, so NDY aims to “centralize things, a bit.”
NDY was first held at just two venues, but has since expanded to nine. It’s also managed to draw in bands from around the world, including Spain, Mexico, Germany and France. “Now things have grown to be, not just hardcore punk, but all different kinds of music,” says Hardie. She’s excited about Spain’s Una Bèstia Incontrolable and France’s RIXE, but says there will also be plenty of homegrown talent at the fest. “We always try to showcase the best Canadian bands.”
There are plenty of challenges in putting together a music festival in Toronto, not least of which is space. Hardie says finding available venues and trying to establish all-ages shows are challenges. “Toronto’s tricky because there are not a lot of all-ages venues,” she says. “The city’s so expensive, so it’s not easy to rent a space and make it all-ages,” which means forgoing bar revenue for the night. And then there’s the added issue of accessibility: “The problem with Toronto’s venues is the architecture of the city—it has to be either upstairs or downstairs.” Nevertheless, she’s proud to say that two of the festival’s main venues, the Horseshoe Tavern and the Garrison, are accessible to concert-goers. It can also boast the inclusion of Toronto’s lesser-known DIY music venues; D-Beastro opened last year, and acts as both a vegan café and art spot.
In true punk-fashion, the festival’s webpage says that it is a “no nonsense, no pass” affair. Hardie writes this off as a purely logistical tagline, saying that the wristband system adopted by so many other music festivals is flawed. “With wristbands, it’s not even that you get to go to everything, you either have a cap on the number of wristbands that get into a show, or you don’t have it open to the general public. It’s better to just have people buy the tickets for what they want to see.”
So why check out NYD? Well, if you’re at all into punk music, it really does provide an opportunity to see bands you might never have heard of, and may never see again. Aside from the bevy of international talent unlikely to be making its way through Toronto again anytime soon, there’s also bands like Foundation, who will be making their final Canadian tour stop before disbanding for good.
And if you’re not one for live shows, the festival has several other events lined up that may be more your scene. The Faith/Void record shop will feature an art show and a record swap, plus an appearance from Fucked Up’s Damian Abraham, who will be doing a discussion on the current status of punk with author Tony Rettman.
Hardie says the festival goals are simple. “We just think, who do we want to see, and who do we think our friends should see,” she says.