St. John's Comes Alive with Lawnya Vawnya V

St. John’s Comes Alive with Lawnya Vawnya V

Apr 22, 2015 by Andrew Sampson in Events

The fifth edition of Lawnya Vawnya kicks off tonight at The Republic with a show featuring Jonny & the Cowabungas, Quidi Video, and Halifax’s Vulva Culture.

The festival is a boon for the St John’s, NL music scene: a showcase for killer local acts and exciting come-from-aways. Like at the festival’s Atlantic Canadian peers: Halifax’s Pop Explosion and Sackville, New Brunswick’s Sappyfest, a wristband pass gets you all-inclusive access to every show during the 5 day festival.

Lawnya Vawnya is a great reminder that in addition to a festival like East Coast Music Week, which often showcases acts with significant (read: any) marketing muscle behind them, a well curated local festival is an equally valid approach. Free of industry “professionals” and Coors brand reps schmoozing around each venue, Lawnya Vawnya places the music and art front and centre, showcasing bands who have been producing and recording independent records for years.

If you’re curious or on-the-fence about what St John’s has to offer musically, Lawnya Vawnya is also an excellent chance to get a sampling of some great bands from around town. Local acts are frequently paired up with acts from the mainland, opening up St John’s to the rest of Canada and acting as a yearly celebration of the city’s local scene.

There’s often a common misconception that nothing is happening in St John’s – that because of its remote location, bands from away don’t bother coming here. But look closer and you’ll see that in the absence of frequent shows from outside bands, there’s a pervasive work ethic that goes into maintaining the livelihood of the scene. The town has been pushed to foster and support an an inclusive music scene that is far more vibrant and diverse than a city of this size has any right to be. St John’s proves the thesis of seminal 80s punk manifesto Our Band Could Be Your Life correct: if the bands you want to hear aren’t coming anywhere near where you live, why not start a band yourself?

Acts playing this year from St John’s include MAANS, Family Video, Mooch, Slick Nixon, The Mudflowers and several others. From out of town, Toronto garage punk’s Teenanger, fuzz pop group Weaves, experimental punk band Suuns, electro pop artist Lowell and folk sextet The Strumbellas headline the fest.

Head down to the festival opening party at the Republic tonight to catch ethereal Halifax dream pop group Vulva Culture, local shoe-gazer’s Quidi Video, and then work your way up to your first unexpected but in no way regrettable hangover of the week while moshing to Jonny and the Cowabunga‘s punk-tinged surf rock.

After tonight, your choices of what to see get a bit harder. But one of the best parts of any wristband based festival is hopping between shows. And given that downtown St John’s isn’t exactly a bustling metropolis, running around from show to show is only ever going to take you as far as going from the Deck to The Ship.

Here’s a playlist to tide you over and help you make some tough decisions about what to see over the next 5 days.

Week-long passes for Lawnya Vawnya are $100 and available from Fixed Coffee and Mallard Cottage. Individual shows run from Pay What You Can (for Wednesday’s opening show) to anywhere between $10 and $25.