Elsethings Arts Festival started a day early for Halifax this weekend at the Seahorse Tavern. Nick Everett & Everybody, whose new album Elsethings inspired the festival, were one of three bands to take the stage in a “pre-festival release.”
Nick Everett & Everybody, along with The Belle Comedians and Special Costello, took to the stage on Jan. 18 to please a plaid-shirted, glasses-wearing, beanie-loving crowd.
Though Halifax got an early sneak peek, for the rest of the country the Elsethings Arts Festival officially took place on Saturday. The festival included over 70 artists and 48 bands who played in 15 cities all over Canada simultaneously.
In addition to inspiring it, Nick Everett, 22, helped to organize the festival. He co-ordinated events in all participating cities east of Saskatoon. According to Everett, the idea for the nation-wide festival came from Tyler Butler of Cabin Songs, who organized the western portion of the festival.
The festival was spread out from Victoria to St. John’s. Everett says it reflects how the album was recorded.
“We toured and recorded all over Canada this summer. It took a lot of research and there were months of cold-calling and cold-emailing. We probably sent out around 57,000 emails,” says Everett.
He says the festival was a nice alternative to touring for Nick Everett & Everybody, and it was meant to promote local bands on a national scale.
“We did this mostly as an experiment,” Everett admits. His main job was to find curators in every city. Everett says for him the hardest part was hand-making the posters.
Nick Everett & Everybody, who have been playing together for one year, is compromised of Everett, Scott Boudreau and Adam White. Everett says that their playing together “just made sense”—and it does.
The band is like a hybrid of Radiohead and City & Colour, although out of the hybrid comes original sound. Their album is original, and the Seahorse was packed. People suffered the technical difficulties to hear them play following the two opening bands.
Canadian talent featured in the festival in other cities included Moving Arms, Mo Kenney, Jack Crocker, Ingrid Gatin, Ivy Mairi, and many more.
“I chose to work with people I loved who are really competent,” says Everett, in reference to the festival. Indeed, there was a sense of unity and community at the show as people came together knowing that tomorrow in cities all over the country, strangers would be doing the same to support the same band.
Each show sold copies of Elsethings and accepted $5 donations to go to local artists.
After the preview on Friday, Nick Everett & Everybody performed in Sydney, N.S. at Governors Pub & Eatery for the actual music festival.
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