Brandon Hoffman
Special to the Tribune/Advisor
This Friday, April 1 is the final Safety Meeting of the season.
I wish our dedicated concert-goers the best as we say goodbye for another year.
With any luck we managed to help, in our small way, to free up wait-times at the Cariboo Memorial Hospital emergency room.
The Arts on the Fly Festival Society thanks you for coming out and making the series such a huge success in it’s second year!
We decided to end the series on a dancy note.
This won’t be a jagger-bomb-slamming-dance-’til-you-puke kind of event; I’d like to think we offer something a little bit classier than that.
We are incredibly excited to sway to the blissfully weird tones of Dada Plan.
Checking out Dada Plan’s website might leave you even more confused about the band. Embracing confusion seems to be in their mandate.
They released their record A Dada Plan is Free on vinyl, CD, cassette, VHS, and floppy disc. Yes, I said floppy disc.
The release was met with huge praise from Vice’s Noisey, the Georgia Straight, Westender, Exclaim, and many more.
It also landed them some pretty amazing festival slots, like opening for artists Flying Lotus, Tycho, and another band this June at Vancouver’s Levitation festival.
This band is taking off in big ways, and we are so stoked to have landed them for a Safety Meeting.
When we were booking the 2016 season, co-ordinator Brent Morton put Dada Plan on the top of his list.
This was quite understandable to me, but I was unaware that he had an alternative motive behind this goal.
Shortly after securing the band for the series, he alerted me and mutual friend/occasional collaborator Jason Romero that we were to form a band to open the night.
We obviously agreed whole-heartedly.
The band draws from our three individual projects (Drum and Bell Tower, Pharis and Jason Romero, and Blocktreat) to make something quite unlike anything each of us have ever made before.
It took a few jams to find a groove, but once we hit a stride we were able to synthesize a set with electrified banjo, a steady pulse of syncopated bass and kick drum, and blankets of synth and effects processing.
The New Normal (a name Brent may have already had up his sleeve before we got together, but seemed like an obvious choice) may never play a set again.
I certainly hope this isn’t the case. With two-thirds of the band expecting newborn babies very soon, the future of The New Normal is anybody’s guess.
Tickets for this Friday’s Safety Meeting are at Red Shred’s Bike and Board Shed for $20. Proceeds from the bar go to the Cariboo Festival Society.
We hope to see you then!
While Brent and I were out of town for last week’s meeting with CR Avery, Lexi Marie, and Papa Lung, I hear it was spectacular.
This couldn’t have happened without our awesome team of volunteers.
Huge thanks to Marla Barrett for running the door and handling merch, Ann Smith and Sharon Hoffman of the Cariboo Festival Society for running the bar, Bill Irwin and Lacey Ranger for keeping the sound running great, and Megan Cook for heading up the cleaning crew.
A very special thank-you goes out to the Safety Meeting’s right hand man, James Still. This guy has come down after school for every concert of the season to help set-up and tear-down, as well as helping with sound-tech responsibilities, and even capturing some fantastic photos of the events.
While I’m rattling off thankyous, I would also like to give some props to Devon Chappell and the Bean Counter crew for providing some tasty treats for the series, as well as the Central Cariboo Arts Centre for offering such an insanely affordable facility for the events.
Kent Bernadet has captured some amazing photos of the concerts, completely free of charge. We are blessed for to have his incredible skills.
Finally, Gaeil Farrar, Monica Lamb-Yorski, and Angie Mindus at the Williams Lake Tribune have been instrumental in getting the word out about our concerts, so thank you three very much.
The Arts on the Fly Festival Society has plenty more programming coming your way soon, so keep an ear to the ground!
