Living Roots and Living Rooms

Festival builds international community through weekly streaming concert series.

Matt Carter

Living Roots Music Festival is still a go, for now anyway. At a time when festivals and events of all shapes and sizes are cancelling and postponing regular programming on account of the current health crisis, festival founder Eddie Young remains optimistic his Fredericton event could still happen.

“Right now, it is still on,” he said. “But every day that goes on lessons that option. I put a deadline of May 1 on myself to make a call.”

Young started the festival in 2016 and has watched it grow year after year, attracting a wide range of emerging and established artists playing everything from folk to punk rock. The 2020 event is currently scheduled to take place May 28-31.

To help promote this year’s festival, support some of the artists who have been impacted by the recent events and as a way to bring a little entertainment into the homes of music lovers everywhere, Young launched a Sunday series of live performances dubbed the Living Rooms Music Festival.

“We’re going to do it each Sunday from 4-9 p.m. with 10 acts each week,” said Young. “The first week went well and on time and we raised $500 which was distributed to the artists playing. The goal is to help out working artists that have zero income right now with not being able to play shows. We have acts signed up from all over the world so that artists can share their music with folks all over the world. Each act is responsible for inviting their fan base and friends.”

The first live streaming concert event took place last week and has since topped over 8000 views.

“The first week saw nearly 10,000 views over the few pages that it streamed on – Roots & Soul, The Cap and Grimross Brewing Co. We have added the Miramichi House Concert series page this week.”

The next event takes place Sunday March 29 with performances from Bobby Dove, Brent Mason, Charlie Dweeber, Chips, Derek Gullison, Joel Fafard, Kylie Fox and others.