Grid City Magazine concludes its ten year run with reflections on the festival that started it all.
Matt Carter
Ten years ago today Grid City Magazine went live. My first post was about a Canadian punk band called Gob and their upcoming performance at The Cap. A lot has changed since then.
I started GCM not long after I began working for Theatre New Brunswick in 2014. Part of my job at TNB involved seeking media opportunities to help promote our theatre productions. It was never an easy task. One day I had a conversation with a colleague who said, “You know, it’s really hard to get media attention in this city if you’re not a big jazz and blues festival.” This opinion hit hard, because from my experience, it was true. An obvious nod to the weight and hard earned cultural capital carried by the Harvest Jazz and Blues Festival as it was then known, convincing an overworked staff writer to give your dance performance, or your musical event, or your theatre show, or your gallery opening a few hundred words of attention was practically impossible at the time. Radio and TV? Forget it.
It was from that simple conversation I decided to make an attempt at launching an indie media project that would focus attention towards all the under-the-radar arts activities I feel are an essential part of what makes Fredericton such a great place to call home. And so I did. With a unified strategy involving a web platform and a variety of social media channels and no business plan whatsoever, I set to work championing local bands, theatre companies, music venues, and art galleries, all of which I believe deserved far more attention than they receive. To this day, I still believe we don’t recognize these groups and their role in making our house a home with the care and attention they deserve.
Back then, finding content to write about was pretty easy. I just had to skim Facebook and the Fredericton Arts Alliances’s weekly newsletter to learn much of what was happening during any given week. It’s the kind of work anyone could do. But at the time, no one was doing it. Like I said already, a lot has changed over the past decade. The popularity of Facebook groups and influencer culture in recent years has helped make local arts awareness far more accessible than it was when I started this project, which is part of the reason I feel good about stepping away from GCM today, ten years after it began.
As the catalyst for getting this whole thing started, I purposefully stayed away from writing about Harvest during GCM’s first few years. My opinion at the time was that my efforts could be better spent going to bat for those who could not expect their events to be covered by traditional forms of media. Yet here I am writing my final post still buzzing from all the electrifying performances I’ve experienced at this year’s Harvest Music Festival. Walking around enjoying the most magical week of Fredericton’s annual event calendar got me thinking about how much I have grown over the past decade, how much my life has changed, and how my opinion of Harvest has shifted from, “I guess it’s ok. A lot of people seem to like it,” to something more along the lines of, “Ok. Who am I kidding? Harvest, your importance to our city cannot be overstated.”
In the same way our personal relationships can shift and evolve as we grow and (hopefully) mature, my relationship to Harvest has grown in ways I never expected. Early on, it was always a two sided affair. There were times when I couldn’t wait to share my privileged opinion in criticizing each new lineup, only to revel in the festival magic months later when the tents had been erected and our downtown transformed into something otherworldly. A critic and a fan. It is possible to have it both ways. But let me tell you, it’s a lot of work and a lot less enjoyable.
I think it was somewhere around the midpoint of GCM’s run that I caved. I just couldn’t deny it anymore. I’d experienced so many life changing musical performances thanks to Harvest that to continue to downplay my growing love and appreciation became too much work.
This year, my relationship to Harvest reached an entirely new level when our six year old son came home from school, a newly devoted fan of 18 year old pop singer DeeDee Austin. Thanks to Harvest’s Blues in the Schools program, children are treated to live music and conversations with festival artists. I’ve known about this program for years but this was the first time I got to witness first hand the effect this program has on our next generation volunteers, organizers, musicians, and festival goers. It was a real eye opener to me.
And speaking of magic, no reflection on a Harvest past would be complete without mentioning a touch of Harvest Magic, those random acts of kindness that occur each year during festival week. But first, a little backstory: My mom is a huge Blue Rodeo fan. Two years ago she missed out on tickets for their Harvest show and was planning to spend the night of their performance at home, wishing she was sitting in the Blues Tent singing along with Jim Cuddy, Greg Keelor, and the band. Hours before the show while enjoying an afternoon beer at The Cap, someone offered me a ticket. I immediately called my mom who was out working in her garden, and made a lifelong dream of hers come true. And this year something similar happened.
As is often the case on day three or four of the festival, I was feeling pretty musiced out. My ears were tired. My head and heart, full. Earlier in the week, a friend offered us two tickets to see Sarah Harmer’s Sunday afternoon festival closing performance. My wife and I planned to go together but our babysitter fell through. My wife has seen Sarah play several times but I was still waiting for my first opportunity. She insisted I call a friend and go. So I called my mom. And just like before, with only a few hours notice, I was able to treat her to show neither of us will soon forget. As Sarah stepped out on stage, I felt tears running down my face. Having the opportunity to see an artist I enjoy and admire and to share that experience with my mom, there are no words. I cried off and on for the whole show. I think I needed to feel that Harvest Magic more than ever yesterday knowing I had to go home and write this article. As we stood to applaud her encore, another unforgettable Harvest was officially in the books.
I think it’s kind of fitting (not to mention an incredible privilege) to close out this chapter of my life reflecting on this annual highlight we share and engage in as a community year after year. Harvest keeps growing, as do we all.
GCM has been a constant companion of mine since the beginning. Like any meaningful relationship, it has at times, enriched my life and complicated it. It has afforded me a lifetime’s worth of memories and has led to countless new friendships. But it has also affected the way I experience the very events I set out to support. Did I do enough to help this person with their project? Could I have helped get more bums in the seats for this show? These thoughts have become all too prevalent in shaping how I experience things. The joy I once derived from writing about a show or a gallery opening or a new album by a local artist has, in recent years, become increasingly met with guilt over what I didn’t write about or what I could have done differently. I set out to do it all and it took me a decade to realize the impossible goal I set for myself.
I’ve loved every minute of this ride but it’s time for me to do something different. I don’t want to feel guilty about not writing an album review for someone or serving one event over another. But it’s more than that. In 2018, our family life changed when my wife and I became parents to an amazing boy who has become the best friend we’ve ever known. Where I once would spend my evenings writing features and bouncing ideas off my partner, my evenings are now devoted to bike rides, soccer games, swimming lessons, trips to the skatepark, family band jam sessions, and reading books about dinosaurs and superheroes. And I love every second of it. My life has changed and I have to change with it.
I want to spend more time being fully present in everything I do and not worrying about the 568 unread emails I need to sift through. I want to get back to some of the things I made time for before GCM and I want to explore other interests I’ve developed in recent years. I want to draw more pictures. I want to paint more. I want to rekindle my love for photography. I want to make weird art projects. And I still want to write about music, but I want to do it for me without a deadline and without someone expecting me to do it.
As I proudly close out this chapter on my life, I want to thank everyone who supported GCM over the years. Anyone who read or shared an article; every musician who reached out with an advanced stream of their album; and those of you who took the time to say thanks. Let me finally flip the script and say thank you to you all. It’s been an incredible journey and I’m honoured we got to do it all together.
My love and appreciation for all that makes our city (and our province) great is endless.
