I was having the worst migraine of my life, quickly accumulating empty Triptan packaging in the middle of July, and I was going to an outdoor music festival, hoping to see as many bands as my five-hour window would allow.
The West 4th Avenue Khatsahlano Street Party, named after Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish) Chief August Jack Khatsahlano, is an annual, daylong outdoor music and street fair highlighting local artists and artisans, organized by the Kitsilano West 4th Avenue Business Association. The event sprawls ten blocks, from Burrard Street along 4th up to Macdonald Street. Musical acts, including headliners Uncle Strut and Art d’Ecco were chosen by the independent Vancouver label Zulu Records, also based in Kitsilano.
It was, for the most part, a pleasantly warm but cloudy day, if you could manage to avoid the clusters of insulating body heat peppered along the avenue.
Aleah KippanThis year, vendors and brick-and-mortar businesses were encouraged to enter a window display contest with a Lewis-Caroll-inspired “Wonderland” theme. Stores took it in stride, showcasing whimsical toadstools, rabbits and playing cards. A giant chess set sponsored by the Vancouver Chess School was laid out along Larch Street, while a similarly oversized teapot stood at the Balsam intersection.
It was, for the most part, a pleasantly warm but cloudy day, if you could manage to avoid the clusters of insulating body heat peppered along the avenue. The entertainment people gravitated towards varied. There was music; when I first arrived around 3:30 p.m., an enthusiastic, headbanging (which I ruled out for myself in my state of consistent and throbbing neck pain) crowd had gathered around to see Chopping Spree!, a Vancouver-based jazz fusion band formed out of UBC’s Jazz Ensemble. People also gathered outside pubs screening the Norway vs. England World Cup game — and further down the street, dozens cheered on a child as he completed one pull-up after another at a promotional stand for a gym.
In between Chopping Spree! and the Blue Rivera set I had planned on attending, I was pulled away from my walk up the avenue by the sound of musician Cœurtis’s agile vocalizations from the Yew Street stage. She has a velvety contralto that lends itself well to smooth, R&B-influenced tracks. She closed her set with an acoustic rendition of a song from her debut EP Essence. Cœurtis had the disadvantage (and judging by the layout of the event, other artists performing on the side street stages likely shared in her misfortune) of performing directly across from one of several beer gardens blasting dance-pop playlists. She carried on through her set admirably, but the proximity of the stage and beer garden read to me as inadvertently disrespectful. A musician's ability to hear themselves, and in this case their band as well, is crucial.
This was one of the examples earlier in the day that led me to form the impression that the organizers were prioritizing vendors and restaurants. The music was secondary to admittedly delicious food and a wide array of curios; a handwoven “Handsome Squidward” rug, or a genuinely bizarre collaboration between a coffee shop and a Korean skin care brand advertising their new flavoured açaí drink and lip balm tie-in. It wasn’t a shock: the explicit aims of the Business Association are “marketing, promoting, beautifying and advancing a thriving, sustainable business district for its residents, guests, its 240+ business members and more than 150 commercial property owners,” and free entry for an event of this size would likely be impossible without at least a few large corporate sponsors.
When I first arrived around 3:30 p.m., an enthusiastic, headbanging (which I ruled out for myself in my state of consistent and throbbing neck pain) crowd had gathered around to see Chopping Spree!, a Vancouver-based jazz fusion band formed out of UBC’s Jazz Ensemble.
Aleah Kippan / The UbysseyAlthough there were dedicated children’s performers and activities, I saw several toddlers who, equipped with large plastic-shelled earmuffs, either remained unfazed as their parents danced near the main stages or even joined in themselves. There seemed no reason why they shouldn’t be there, despite expectations of what rock show attendees might look like — young, but not as young as three years old, or older and nostalgic for a particular sound that the zeitgeist has moved on from.
As it started to drizzle, Brass Camel played their last few songs and things started to get worse. The sounds from the stage started to pierce the headache that had until then vibrated at a low-level frequency of misery.
The thing about migraines is that it is deceptively easy to fake being fine, so much so that you may convince yourself you were exaggerating the pain, or that you had somehow imagined it altogether, even when it has passed the point of creeping and becomes firmly implanted. It impairs one’s ability to focus. You start paying attention to the wrong things — people’s shoes, for example — while the dazzling proficiency of the rock band in front of you begins to recede into the background. Brass Camel closed with their song "King for a Day" and I quickly made my way to the food truck with the shortest line in search of water, having made the naive mistake of leaving my bottle behind.
I took some time to rest on a knoll near an apartment building and eventually walked back to Burrard, choosing to end the day watching Felisha and the Jazz Rejects. The four-piece rock group originally met through Capilano University’s jazz program. The virtuosity of their lead singer, Felisha Rolin, not always immediately obvious on digital recordings, was on full display during their set. She shifts effortlessly between growls and the dainty, crystal-clear peak of her vocal range on the witchy track "Before I Wake," to the richer, deeper tonalities required of other ranchera-tinged material.
Time spent travelling to a venue or planning an outing, choosing what to see when you know you cannot be in two places at once, or even the varying initial discomfort of being pressed up against a crowd of strangers all bind the listener to a performance.
Aleah Kippan / The UbysseyThe lack of meticulous documentation of set lists or even promotional material on many of the bands’ social media posed a challenge when trying to reassemble details from the night. Despite this, a charming looseness surrounding the acts themselves grounded them in the hyperlocal and the here and now. This ephemerality is largely absent — by design — from the dominant music culture, which, driven by streaming platforms that prioritize data collection repackaged as amusing insights into one’s personality, negate the nebulousness of what we call 'preferences.'
I have little in raw data to show for this event. My attendance at Khatsahlano will not silo me into any one “type” of listener or consumer, nor will it contribute to whatever newly-devised “core” my music platform of choice decides I fit into at the end of the year. But it has served as a reminder of why physical spaces where real investment from the listener is required still matter. Time spent travelling to a venue or planning an outing, choosing what to see when you know you cannot be in two places at once, or even the varying initial discomfort of being pressed up against a crowd of strangers all bind the listener to a performance. They add to the unevenness of an experience in place of an act of mere consumption, where convenience becomes the main drawing point. I knew, even as I felt unwell, that no solitary music listening experience could compare.
