By Megan Cole
Anniversaries always come with certain emotions. With the one-year anniversary of the abbreviated 2013 Sled Island Festival, and the devastating flood that caused it to be cancelled, there seemed to be an equal amount of uneasiness and excitement among the festival’s attendees this year.
As with almost every festival, there was a lot of debate around the strength of the Sled Island lineup, especially after headliner Neko Case cancelled her set just hours before she was meant to take the stage, but on the last night, as Rocket from the Crypt returned to the Calgary stage after a nearly 10-year hiatus, any doubt of the quality of this year’s lineup was completely eliminated.
During the White Lung and The Blind Shake sets that preceded Rocket’s jaw-dropping performance, proud and excited fans were seen all over the Olympic Plaza venue sporting their Rocket from the Crypt and Swami Records t-shirts.
With an extensive discography to cover, the six-piece band, led by the dominant force that is John Reis, had their work cut out for them. They managed to include nearly two songs from all their recorded albums, including “Boy Chucker,” “Ditch Digger,” “I’m Not Invisible,” and, of course, “On a Rope.” There was also enough John Reis persona oozing from the stage to keep the crowd completely engaged from beginning to end, and everyone was begging for more.
While Rocket from the Crypt’s performance was an obvious Sled Island highlight, other moments that stood out were the Joel Plaskett Emergency’s impromptu move to the Friday night Olympic Plaza headliner position, replacing Neko Case.
Meanwhile, Calgary acts of all genres made their city proud and some favourites were Hag Face, Fist City, Catholic Girls and Skin Colour. The Constantines’ frontman Bry Webb also makes the highlights list, not only for his beautiful songs, and they weren’t all slow and low-tempo, but especially for the way he dealt with to local characters who had made their way into the Olympic Plaza’s now-free show on Friday and seemed disappointed they weren’t seeing Blue Rodeo instead.
All the acts that performed over the five-day festival were armed with a variety of original music and some epic covers, too. Minneapolis’ Fury Things did a memorable version of Destiny’s Child’s (yes, Beyonce’s old group) “Say My Name.” Plaskett managed to turn his crowd favourite, “Work It Out,” into a medley that included a cover of Lorde’s “Royals,” and at Old Man Markley’s performance/full out dance party, which included a bluegrass-style circle pit, there were covers of Screeching Weasel’s “The Science of Myth” and a tribute to fellow Fat Wreck Chord band No Use for a Name’s Tony Sly, with their version of “Feel Good Song of the Year.”
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