This Saturday is the return of the Squamish Equinox Spring Rock Festival at Nexen Beach. It's a daylong, family-friendly indie-rock celebration with hula hoops, fire spinning and drum circles. Festival organizers are encouraging people to ride their bikes to the festival this year rather than drive, and will provide a bike valet area sponsored by the Squamish Downtown Business Improvement Association.
Jon and Roy - 10:30 p.m.
The Victoria quartet play acoustic-driven folk-rock that's a little Jack Johnson, a little pre-electric Bob Dylan and just enough on-stage fun to inspire your twirling in the sand for an hour at least.
Kuba Oms and the Velvet Revolution - 9:25 p.m.
Yanked through the indie hype machine with his electronic improv project, Velvet, only to see it unravel before even completing a record, Oms came through the other end broken-hearted and drug-addicted. While struggling for sobriety, he wrote a massive repertoire of soul-inspired indie-dance, as if Matthew Good had mashed his entire career with Jamiroquai's.
C.R. Avery - 8:20 p.m.
The beat-boxing kindred spirit of Tom Waits. A one-man band for the new generation. A hip-hoppin' harp player who can sing the blues and write a play about it at the same time. A one of a kind show - an enigma wrapped in a tweed jacket. The type of man you should see at least once, and then maybe again.
Los Furious - 7:20 p.m.
The Vancouver six-piece has played all over the western side of the continent for over a decade. It's breezy, it's easy and there's hardly a trace of the anger one might expect of a band called Los Furios.
Blackberry Wood - 4:30 p.m.
Take the Grateful Dead's "Mexicali Blues" and stretch it out, mining every idea in that one song into a career's worth of tunes and you've nailed Blackberry Wood down. The truth is, they can't be pigeonholed - part gypsy rock, part Muddy Waters, part cowboy. We could add analogies for the next 24 hours, if we wanted to, but we don't have the space, or the time, for that.
Jackfruit - 2:30 p.m.
A clown is in the middle of a psychotic breakdown. Take a peak inside his mind if you like, and you'll hear Jackfruit playing on a continuous loop, with a virtuoso manning the keyboards and Fifties-style crooner leading the pack. The music is weird and alluring.
Kostaman - 5:30 p.m.
So much reggae! So little time! Whistler's own Kostaman will close down the afternoon and welcome the evening, when the families start going home and the drum circles, fire spinners and UFOs rule the night. Yes, UFOs will land at midnight (really they will.) It will be peace-loving fun and there's no better way to start it off than with our old buddy, Kostaman.
Also playing: Broken Logic (6:30 p.m.); Redeye Empire (3:30 p.m.); Volume Collective (1:40 p.m.); Bluesberry Jam (12:50 p.m.); Scott Verbeek (12 p.m.); Riddim Fernandez (DJ sets all day); The Librarian (DJ sets all day)
