Toronto Urban Roots Festival

#TBT – Local Natives @ Toronto Urban Roots Festival 2014

It’s been over three years since Local Natives released their last album, Sunlit Youth. However, yesterday they announced a new tour, with a stop here in Toronto. On Monday, May 27th, they will be making an appearance at The Phoenix, with support from Middle Kids. Tickets start at $39.50 + fees and go on sale tomorrow at 10:00am, and can be purchased HERE (via Ticketfly & Collective Concerts). With the concert announcement comes promise of new music, to be coming sometime in March, so we’ll be sure to keep an eye out for that.

Above is a photo from the one time I shot the band, playing a late afternoon set at Toronto Urban Roots Festival. I shot the fest for both Beyond the Watch and TURF, and neither site has the photos up anymore, so I will hopefully have the full sets posted at some point in the future, so there’s also that to keep an eye out for (though, less exciting I am sure).

#TBT – Gary Clark Jr. @ TURF

Gary Clark Jr. @ Toronto Urban Roots Fest (RIP) 2014.

As the year gets underway, and the summer festival lineups are being revealed, I am trying to temper my excitement. In the last ten years, Toronto went from not having any big outdoor summer festivals to a major summer festival destination. One of the festivals that has gone by the wayside, was TURF – Toronto Urban Roots Festival. The fest ran for four years from 2013 through 2016, and was a definite highlight of those summers. I even had the opportunity to shoot the first two as one of the festival photographers, which was exciting to be able to have my photos presented to a much bigger audience than I could get on my own.

Gary Clark Jr. performed at the 2014 incarnation of TURF, and I bring this up because last week he announced he has a new album being released. The album is called This Land and is scheduled for release on March 8th. Watch the video for the politically-charged title track below.