I once read someone describe being in a mosh pit as how they imagined it felt like to be born. To me it was particularly poignant as I came across it early in my involvement with the local St. Catherine’s music scene – an instep to a new beginning of my own that would significantly impact thus far the next five and a half years of my life. Yesterday was SCENE Music Festival - the musical equivalent of Christmas for all the good girls and boys of the Niagara Region that have even the slightest investment in the area’s independent musicians. Being there, I can’t help but extend this natal metaphor to describe my current involvement. It’s really weird to not recognize most of the people there any more. Or to stand on the periphery of a crowded venue watching the young blood form the vital core, sweating and shoving, as the elders (with the exception of the anomalous die-hard) move past the basal layer of the pit and either into some auxiliary facilitating function, or sloughed off into the ether like a dermal layer of skin.
Having said that, I think I speak for the entire Pause Designs crew when I say that we had a pretty fantastic time yesterday. Many many thanks to anyone and everyone that stopped bye our booth. Just to allay any residual fears, the cookies were not actually poisoned. Very special thanks to Gord from Golden Horseshoe, who kept us well entertained throughout the day, Lee from We Go To Shows for collaborating with us on the flyers and the three girls who invaded the entire place with our stickers of their own accord. If at any point you were slapped with our logo or otherwise accosted by a girl in a yellow bandanna, then you know what I’m talking about. Of course we always appreciate when the Raging Lilies grace us with their presence and Shannon did an outstanding job of distributing our tasty marketing ploys. Again, anyone who picked up some of our merchandise or took the time to check out what we were selling, we appreciate and thank each and every one of you.
The high point of the evening for me was talking with Liam from Cancer Bats (which happened to be one of only two shows that I managed to slip away from the booth for). Apparently, he heard that someone was selling bootleg Cancer Bats shirts and he was trying to figure out who it was. (Ps. If someone was in fact selling fake shirts for any band, that is totally fucked up and I hope you get hit by a train). For anyone who is curious, Liam seems to be a very nice guy and even walked away with a little Pause merch.
Thanks to everyone who made SCENE a great success yet again and we hope to see you all there again next year!
-Ken ¶ 9:11 PM
