[URBAN NOTE] "Escape the city at Camp Wavelength"
Kieran Delamont's Spacing Toronto essay on Camp Wavelength sells me on the festival.
At last year’s Camp Wavelength festival, the enchantment of Friday night still buzzing, Jonathan Bunce (“Jonny,” he insists upon) and his Wavelength organizing partners stood on the beach on Toronto Island. A white dingy, captained by a man in a Super Dave Osborne-esque, all-white jumpsuit came slowly towards the shore. With one foot up on the hull of the boat, à la Washington Crossing the Delaware, ‘Dingyman’ (as they now call him) beached his small boat in front of the festival’s organizers.
“He was like, ‘hey, what’s up guys? Is Kyle here?!’” says Bunce. Before he or Aaron Dawson could answer, Dingyman piped in: “He was like, ‘Hey, hang on - you guys want a beer?’ and he started passing out cans of beer to anyone who was there,” he says. “He figured out Kyle wasn’t there, but he hung out for ten minutes and had a beer with us.” And then, continuing his bacchanalian pursuit of whatever party Kyle was at, he disappeared into the night, heading (puzzlingly) directly away from the beach, rather than along it. “The next morning, the three or four of us who were there had to corroborate to make sure we weren’t hallucinating.”
These moments, bizarre as they are summer-defining, can be hard to come by in the 416; they require a state of unwind that, more often than not, is inverse to one’s proximity to the city. That they are rare makes them that much more valuable. “For me being a city boy,” says Bunce, “I haven’t had a lot of those kinds of experiences.”
Camp Wavelength is a music festival that wants to be unlike any other festival, committed to bring those hazy, summer moments within reach of even the most committed urbanites. As the only camping-and-music festival in Toronto, the experience it aims to create differs sharply from the big, commercial festival experiences that, over the last decade and a half, has exploded in popularity in Toronto and across North America. That’s by design: “Camp Wavelength is an alternative to the typical summer festival,” says Bunce, “where the local band is playing at one in the afternoon and a beer is $11.” This year’s festival will be the second time it has been held, and organizers are hoping they can repeat and build upon last year’s successes. With 25 bands and 16 visual art and mixed-media performances, and a goal of 1,000 attendees, the festival is notably smaller than other big name events. (Wayhome, for example, had an attendance of around 40,000.) It’s small size, though, should not be a measure of its success - small and tight-knit is just the way Wavelength likes to do things. “It lets us be nimble,” says Bunce.
Held between August 19th and 21st, the festival is designed to showcase and promote the diverse range of art and music that Toronto has to offer. “We’re not just booking a lot of sound-alike indie bands,” says Bunce, who excitedly describes the range of genres - the festival offers a mix of indie, hip-hop, free jazz, rock, world music, etc. - showcased by the festival. “Other people [referring to festival organizers] feel like they can’t take the risk of mixing audiences […] A mandate for diversity means you need to live up to it.”
At last year’s Camp Wavelength festival, the enchantment of Friday night still buzzing, Jonathan Bunce (“Jonny,” he insists upon) and his Wavelength organizing partners stood on the beach on Toronto Island. A white dingy, captained by a man in a Super Dave Osborne-esque, all-white jumpsuit came slowly towards the shore. With one foot up on the hull of the boat, à la Washington Crossing the Delaware, ‘Dingyman’ (as they now call him) beached his small boat in front of the festival’s organizers.
“He was like, ‘hey, what’s up guys? Is Kyle here?!’” says Bunce. Before he or Aaron Dawson could answer, Dingyman piped in: “He was like, ‘Hey, hang on - you guys want a beer?’ and he started passing out cans of beer to anyone who was there,” he says. “He figured out Kyle wasn’t there, but he hung out for ten minutes and had a beer with us.” And then, continuing his bacchanalian pursuit of whatever party Kyle was at, he disappeared into the night, heading (puzzlingly) directly away from the beach, rather than along it. “The next morning, the three or four of us who were there had to corroborate to make sure we weren’t hallucinating.”
These moments, bizarre as they are summer-defining, can be hard to come by in the 416; they require a state of unwind that, more often than not, is inverse to one’s proximity to the city. That they are rare makes them that much more valuable. “For me being a city boy,” says Bunce, “I haven’t had a lot of those kinds of experiences.”
Camp Wavelength is a music festival that wants to be unlike any other festival, committed to bring those hazy, summer moments within reach of even the most committed urbanites. As the only camping-and-music festival in Toronto, the experience it aims to create differs sharply from the big, commercial festival experiences that, over the last decade and a half, has exploded in popularity in Toronto and across North America. That’s by design: “Camp Wavelength is an alternative to the typical summer festival,” says Bunce, “where the local band is playing at one in the afternoon and a beer is $11.” This year’s festival will be the second time it has been held, and organizers are hoping they can repeat and build upon last year’s successes. With 25 bands and 16 visual art and mixed-media performances, and a goal of 1,000 attendees, the festival is notably smaller than other big name events. (Wayhome, for example, had an attendance of around 40,000.) It’s small size, though, should not be a measure of its success - small and tight-knit is just the way Wavelength likes to do things. “It lets us be nimble,” says Bunce.
Held between August 19th and 21st, the festival is designed to showcase and promote the diverse range of art and music that Toronto has to offer. “We’re not just booking a lot of sound-alike indie bands,” says Bunce, who excitedly describes the range of genres - the festival offers a mix of indie, hip-hop, free jazz, rock, world music, etc. - showcased by the festival. “Other people [referring to festival organizers] feel like they can’t take the risk of mixing audiences […] A mandate for diversity means you need to live up to it.”