Shivering Songs may have come and gone in January, but its organizers are not waiting until next year’s installment before bringing more great live music to Fredericton.
Shivering Songs is an organization that began as a January music festival nine years ago. With each year, the festival grew and is now one of the most anticipated musical events in the winter.
“When we started to notice that there’s more appetite for shows and a need for people to promote those shows, we grew throughout New Brunswick, stepping outside the festival’s usual dates in January to extend music shows year round on a demand basis,” said Brendan MaGee, Shivering Songs co-producer and media relations officer.
The Montreal-based band Stars is part of this series of concerts organized by Shivering Songs. Stars will be playing alongside Jenn Grant on April 12 at the Fredericton Boyce Farmers’ Market.
According to MaGee, Stars is one of the stand-out Canadian bands over the last 15 years and one of the few bands that remain both critically acclaimed and very popular, as well as admired by its fans.
“They are no strangers to Fredericton,” MaGee said. He first saw them at a concert hosted at the SUB Ballroom in the fall of 2009. At the time, they were touring their recently released album In Our Bedroom After the War.
“It was such a crazy show. I didn’t know them that well, but they were a phenomenal live band. I’ve been a huge fan ever since and we’re very lucky to have them back,” MaGee said.
MaGee also said that the band has been hinting very heavily that this might be their last time going on tour.
“It’s really cool that they care enough about Fredericton to come back one last time, and we’re so lucky to have them,” he said.
MaGee added that the Canadian folk pop singer songwriter Jenn Grant has also played at the festival before. Similarly to Stars, Grant has been making music to national acclaim and touring for over a decade.
MaGee recognized the Fredericton Boyce Farmers’ Market might seem like an unusual venue, but it is one of the few spaces in the city that can hold around 700 people for a stand-up event.
“It doesn’t seem like the most conventional venue, but sometimes that makes for the best experience,” he said. The locale has been used for the finale of the Shivering Songs festivals before.
For MaGee, the music community in Fredericton is flourishing. “Like anywhere it kind of goes through ups and downs. Every couple years, people move away and a lot of times people play in two, three or even four bands at the time. But right now, over the last few years especially, it has been very much on the way up and it’s been an awesome thing to watch,” he said.
MaGee is also a musician and plays in the band Brookside Mall. He found his way into the Shivering Songs organization through friends, by working on similar events before, and by having the idea that it would be nice to have other events around the year to celebrate music and arts.
“There’s a lot of events like music festivals, but regarding shows of their own, this is one I would really recommend going to because we’re not often so lucky to have world-class bands performing for relatively cheap tickets in a great venue. I think all the stars are aligning and it will be a great opportunity,” he said.
He added that this might be a busy time of the year for students as the end of the semester approaches, but thinks this is a great opportunity to blow off steam and celebrate the end of the year.
The show will take place on April 12 at the Fredericton Boyce Farmers’ Market, starting at 8 p.m. Tickets are $35 and can be purchased online.