Three New Bands Added To Area 506 Lineup
SAINT JOHN– Organizers of the Area 506 music festival announced Monday morning that three new bands have been added to the event’s lineup.
The music festival takes place Aug. 2 to Aug. 4 at the old Coast Guard site in uptown Saint John.
Atlantic Canadian rockers Sloan will be joining Saturday’s Main Stage lineup with Interpol, Matthew Good, Dear Rouge, The Motorleague, Christina Martin, Jamie Comeau & the Crooked Teeth, and Kylie Fox.
Fredericton’s Hypochondriacs will be playing on Friday night, which will also feature Joel Plaskett Emergency, Wintersleep, FM Berlin, and The Backstays.
Then, on Sunday evening, Saint John’s own Little You Little Me will take the stage, along with City and Colour, Tokyo Police Club, Rural Alberta Advantage, The Galpines, Les Paiens, Bleum, and The Crossroad Devils.
Ray Gracewood, chairman of the Area 506 committee, says the decision to extend the lineup came from the opportunity to book Sloan.
“I’ve been super comfortable with the lineup and really at the end of the day, we were brought an opportunity to book what I would say is one of my favourite Canadian bands and one that I think is probably as well known as any band on our whole lineup,” he says. “Touring schedules worked out really well and we decided to do it.”
With Sloan being added to the Saturday night lineup, organizers decided to add the two New Brunswick acts to Friday and Sunday night.
“The addition had started with Sloan so that discussion was the first one to happen. As we started to work out how do we launch this and how do we get the most benefit out of it, we thought it would be interesting to give the opportunity to a couple more New Brunswick bands,” says Gracewood. “Anytime we get the opportunity to extend the lineup and do that, it’s a great opportunity to bring more New Brunswick bands to stage.”
But the biggest change to the festival this year is the location. The festival was moved to Coast Guard site because Port Saint John has Long Wharf booked for other commercial activities.
RELATED: Area 506 Music Festival Moving To Coast Guard Site This Summer
“All of our partners have come together to make that happen. I’ve been blown away. Whether that’s from how quickly the coastguard building came down, to how well it was refurbished and paved over and prepped. That’s now completely ready to go and the site looks amazing,” says Gracewood. “When our team shows up on Saturday to start the shipping container drops and start to build our container village, that whole area is ready to go. We’re super excited about that and ecstatic about how that’s come along.”
Though the new site means the festival is now in the heart of the uptown, it also means it’s smaller. Gracewood encouraged those who plan to attend to not wait until the last minute.
“The Long Wharf site was about 200,000 square feet. This one is about 135,000 square feet, so it’s significantly smaller,” he says. “We want to get out there that people should make their decisions sooner rather than later versus expecting buying tickets at the door or the day of is going to be an option.”