Virtual New Brunswick Day celebrations to feature artists, locations across province

Area 506, an annual festival in Saint John, has partnered with the province for virtual New Brunswick Day celebrations.

Like most events and celebrations this year, there was a lot of uncertainty about what New Brunswick day would look like and what would happen to the Area 506 festival.

Ray Gracewood, founder of Area 506, said with the cancellation of the event and traditional New Brunswick Day events, it was a great opportunity to work together.

"As a committed group always interested in sort of new and unique challenges that's how we decided to maybe join forces and see what we could put together and, you know, a pretty quick timeline period of time." 

In a news release, Premier Blaine Higgs said COVID-19 will not stop New Brunswick residents from showing love for their province.

"In the past few months, across the province, New Brunswickers have shown resilience and unity for a common cause. It was important for the provincial government to find a creative way to celebrate our people and honour our history and cultures."

The celebrations will include recordings of past performances at Area 506 and some new ones filmed in advance at well-known locations around the province such as Sugarloaf Provincial park and Metepenagiag First Nation.

"I think the whole idea is that we want to kind of showcase, you know, the diversity of the province. That's what we've always tried to do whether it's through cultural performances on our stage over the past years or different things like that," said Gracewood.

One of the performances was recorded under the city of Saint John sign, featuring Jamie Comeau & the Crooked Teeth.

The band's guitarist Nick LeBlanc said they were only given a weeks notice, but it's an offer they couldn't turn down.

"After performing last year we were invited back to this year's festival and when we realized it couldn't happen we were heartbroken," he said. "So when they asked us to do this, we couldn't say no. We just jumped in." 

They did get to perform for a few spectators live.

"We did see a couple people stop and sneak around the corner to see what was going on and some people cheering between songs. That was kind of cool." 

Brittany McQuinn from the duo Bleum said this is the first show they've played since last year.

She said they've been hesitant to perform in online settings because their shows require a certain level of production.

"It really needs to be a specific setting to be able to be a great show."

Bleum recorded their set at Signature Sound in Fredericton. They have a stage set up for people to use, along with proper lighting.

"It felt very familiar in a sense because it just felt like going home, to be able to perform again." 

McQuinn said, like most artists, she makes most of her income doing live shows, so the past few months have been hard.

Bleum had been focusing on playing festivals around the province. 

"It's been hard because it felt like in March when everything changed that this moment that we've been building up just kind of became a big question mark." 

She said this felt like the right opportunity to perform again.

"A big part of what motivates us to perform is to give that joy to people. To not have had that so far in 2020 has been really strange. This feels right. It feels good. It feels like things are going back to normal even a little bit." 

Celebrations start at 7 p.m. on Monday and can be watched on Area 506's Facebook, Youtube or website.