The Big Time Out’s lineup has been announced, and it’s clear that Cumberland’s little festival is back doing big things again in 2011.
Earlybird tickets are available until Friday for just $85 for the whole two-day show, which is being held Aug. 12 and 13.
Tickets are available at Bop City Records in Courtenay, Tarbells and the Waverley in Cumberland, the Music Plant in Campbell River and online at thebigtimeout.com.
Juno-award winning reggae-pop group Bedouin Soundclash is topping the lineup this year.
The trio formed in 2001 at Queen’s University and started blending pop, rock, punk and reggae as they gigged around Toronto. Their sophomore album, Sounding a Mosaic, caught the ear of critics, and its radio-friendly single, When the Night Feels My Song, propelled them to the top of the charts. The Bedouins earned the Best New Artist Juno that year.
They followed it up in 2007 with Street Gospels, nabbed another Juno and toured alongside No Doubt, Coldplay and Nine Inch Nails.
Years on the road and the excesses that can accompany fame took their toll and forced the Bedouins into a soul-searching hiatus. The band members explored their own musical projects for a time and then came back to the band with a new energy.
In 2010, they released Light the Horizon, an alternately mellow and dance-y album that is classic Bedouin Soundclash: hopeful, longing and carefree.
The 2011 lineup also features:
Beats Antique
Oakland-based Beats Antique is bringing their hypnotic blend of live electronica, world music and sultry dance to The Big Time Out stage on Aug. 13.
The collective’s three core members each bring a varied background to the group, from afro-beat to modern jazz.
The band was asked to define their genre in one word. This is what they came up with: electro-essfunctional-acoustic-melodramatic-downtempo-freakness-world-gypsy-balkan-funk. The strangest thing? That’s a perfect description.
Their stage show is something to behold: a mix of brass, mixers, laptops, drum kits and feather boas. The music is mangy, irreverent, funky and wild.
The Boom Booms
Earthy, funky and uplifting, East Van’s the Boom Booms will make you feel good.
The band members' childhoods were soaked in the sounds of Barbados, Argentina, Pakistan and the rest of the Vancouver diaspora.
Since their formation in 2008, they’ve travelled widely in search of even more – to Mexico, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Panama and Brazil.
They make music to make people come together, from their friends and family at their famous block parties to half-naked Carnavalers in Rio and their new best friends on street corners in Spain.
The Boom Booms became Comox Valley favourites on their last few visits. We’re glad to have our globetrotting friends back.
Dub FX
Dub FX is a live looper and beat boxer, an artist who builds up songs in front of the audience using just his voice and a few bits of gear. His tracks are intricate and infectious, heavily steeped in dubstep, hip hop and drum and bass.
He got his start as a street performer in Melbourne, Australia, and quickly became a star act propelled by awe-struck viewers of his YouTube videos. While Dub’s mastery of the technical aspects of live looping is amazing enough, the resulting music is at once epic and earth-moving.
Kim Churchill
Australian guitarist Kim Churchill is dreamy in both senses of the word.
His sand-and-sun good looks are a perfect match for his upbringing near Byron Bay. And his hopeful, warm lyrics hint that he’s a dreamer at heart.
But don’t be fooled – Churchill is a serious musical force.
The 20-year-old has lived and breathed guitar for the past 10 years, developing a style full of complex finger picking and hammer-ons and improvised slides.
He earned the National Youth Folk Artist Award in 2009 and shared main stages with Xavier Rudd, Michael Franti, Ben Harper, Buffy Sainte-Marie and even Bob Dylan.
Churchill lit up last year’s The Big Time Out and is back by popular demand.
Current Swell
Victoria-based Current Swell adds to the surf-and-summer contingent at this year’s fest.
The band is in the forefront of the “new roots” movement that’s sprung up on Canada’s West Coast and is a mainstay of the surf rock community. Their latest evolution has added a blues and roots vibe to their music while staying true to their sun-drenched, feel-good style.
Emily Spiller
One-woman force Emily Spiller is the other live looper at this year’s festival.
She mashes blues, jazz and soul vocals into haunting and mesmerizing tracks armed just with a mic, a keyboard and a loop machine.
She was a whirlwind in 2010, travelling between Australia and Toronto and racking up award nominations. 2011 sees Spiller’s continued evolution into electronica and countless collaboration on remixes and film.
Kuba Oms & the Velvet Revolution
As a high school kid in Victoria, Kuba Oms wanted to learn to sing. Rather than take lessons, he started a band, called it Souled Out and covered Marvin Gaye, Otis Reading, Stevie Wonder and Joe Cocker all around town.
From there, he formed the legendary Velvet, an experimental-improv unit that crossed into dance/DJ culture and included an ever-changing lineup of musicians (including then-unknown Nelly Furtado).
Velvet released a series of live recordings and 12-inches and became so big that record companies came knocking.
Kuba’s first album, How Much Time, is a funky blend of rock and soul ear candy, perfect for a lazy summer day in Cumberland.
And more. So much more, in fact. Brasstronaut, OKA, Valley, the Great Giffoni.
• • •
The whole performer roster for Aug. 12 and 13 is available online at thebigtimeout.com.
You can check out the entire two-day festival for just $85 with early-bird tickets until Friday. Camping passes and single-day tickets are also available. Grab them all online at thebigtimeout.com.
— The Big Time Out