Day 1 of the 2015 of TURF, The Toronto Urban Roots Festival, was fantastic. The weather was great, the crowd, as always, was fantastic and, of course, the music was sublime.
Prior to the big festival at Fort York, the TURF team put on a Club Bonus Series the coincided with the main festival, as well as a Preview Series. I didn't make it out to all those extra shows, but for the ones that I did, my posts are linked below.
If you missed my individual posts, here's all of day one in one place, plus links to my Club Bonus Series and Preview Series posts.
Alejandro Rose-Garcia is Shakey Graves. He calls Austin home and his music spans rock, blues and country. His early, 3pm performance on the West Stage of The Toronto Urban Roots Festival was well attended by enthusiastic fans who called it a highlight of the festival. His show that same night at The Legendary Horseshoe Tavern was completely sold out well in advance. I'm going to do my best not to miss his show at The Danforth Music Hall on November 8.
The Club Preview Series with Northcote (check out my pics from that show) and upcoming shows from Birds of Bellwoods August 13 at Lee's Palace and Union Duke August 21 at The Horseshoe.
The Club Bonus Series, where you get to go from a fantastic day of the sights, sounds and tastes of TURF at Fort York, to the cozy confines of The Horseshoe or Lee's Palace to take in more great music. The initial Horseshoe line-up and Lee's Palace line-up were recently announced.
Now we get the update on the rest of the Club Preview Shows:
Shakey Graves with NQ Arbuckle at The Horseshoe September 18
The Elwins with Steve Poltz at Lee's Palace September 18
Rich Aucoin at The Horseshoe September 22
You can get in by buying a VIP Plus ticket for access to all TURF shows or individual tickets to the club shows.
I think the only thing that's left to announce is the few TBDs on the main line-up, but you never know.
He's here in Toronto for TURF on Friday, September 18 and I'm very much looking forward to checking out his set. Take a listen to some of his tunes and see if he ends up on your list of artists you've got to see.
