Back at Pickathon Again!

Image Courtesy of Pickathon

By Cole Young

What  a joy it is to be writing about one of my favourite places on earth again. It was a long wait for Pickathon 2022 but man did they deliver yet again. The weekend was full of friends, sun, amazing shows, forest camping and I even got to sit down with Zale, the head of the festival for a little chat! Admittedly, I knew very few names on this year's lineup when it was released. Like many Pickathon regulars though, I had complete faith in their team that I’d undoubtedly find so many new bands to love through this festival that I  didn’t think twice about going. There was lots of new things going on this year balanced by staples that make Pickathon what it is that throughout the weekend it felt both familiar and fresh. Let’s start by talking about some shows because that is ultimately why we all go.

Valerie June. She is just so lovely. It seems as though her songs, banter, stage decor, face and voice seem to be in a constant battle amongst each other to be the most beautiful aspect of her performance and not one of them intend to lose. The stage, always decorated with fresh flowers, glows in the blue lights and light fog. It's truly amazing to be in her presence and experience her calming aura. She takes full control of not only the crowd’s attention but mental state, she has the ability to talk each and every person through their own things at the same time without once coming across as corny, fake or insincere. Her songs have been soundtracks to some low times in my life and they’ve surely had the power to help not just me but countless people.  I’m sure that’s why many people were there to see her, and as amazing as her musical performances are, I think many of us would’ve also just been happy to listen to her speak for an hour as well. Her band is also to thank. During her between song talks there’s always a bit of ambient noise that slowly develops into a loose riff and without a count in or queue Valerie’s monologue effortlessly transitions into the next song with the whole band coming in together, it strikes differently than any other group I’ve seen. Unreal. Despite playing a completely different clump of songs than I would’ve picked for her slot I was still touched and impressed by every single one. The emotion and energy of every song, every lick, curses through her body and the bodies of everyone on stage, they’re engulfed by the music. For those 60 minutes nothing else matters but the sonic environment that they’re creating.

There were many amazing acts though. It was so cool to see a legend like GZA play so many classics, especially joined by a live band to give each of the songs a whole new dynamic. It was also cool to experience so many acts for the first time that really impressed me; Faye Webster, Sampa The Great, Sweeping Promises and Garcia Peoples to name a few. Buuuttttttt I now need to focus a bit on my favourite two sets of the weekend and they were both of Frankie and the Witch Fingers sets.

Holy shit. They rocked so fucking hard. It was impossible not to go crazy, their energy just completely takes over the crowd and we couldn’t have been happier about it. They played Friday night in the Galaxy Barn, exactly where and when they should be playing and it was a gong show from start to finish, full on pit the whole time. They then played a 2pm show outside at the Grove stage and I wasn’t sure if it was going to be able to compete, sometimes some energy gets lost when there’s no walls to contain it. That didn’t matter one bit, turns out if you pump out dangerous levels of energy like that you need no containment. It’ll slap the crowd right in the face no matter where or when you play. It was a full on pit again for the whole set, and these are the exact kind of pits I love. People are going so hard and being completely controlled by the music while also taking such great care of the people around them. It doesn’t take many nobs with their elbows up to ruin a pit but everyone here knew the code. Frankie and the Witch Fingers definitely align with the common modern psych rock sound however I feel like they manage to maintain some real musical independence. You hear lots of subtle jazz and soul influences and seem to really put the effort in to not fall head first into a Dwyer-patented formula that  so many do.  Their shows absolutely bang, their albums (which flow through almost as one long jam ((hello jazz influence!)) absolutely bang, they’re now a staple in my regular listening and are on my “don’t ever miss a gig” list.

What was supposed to be an email interview with the head of the festival ended up turning into an in-person sit down backstage at Pickathon and I couldn’t have been happier about it. Admittedly, I did get nervous before the interview. Those nerves however vanished once I was introduced to Zale. He was truly one of the easiest people to talk to and was committed to making sure I was comfortable and full, we had ice cream sandwiches and he even offered me half of his pizza. His calmness and effortless ease made it so easy to relax and just talk to a man for whom I had so much respect and admiration for. This is the man who puts on my favourite music festival every year and I get to sit down and ask him questions about it and he’s like the nicest guy, pretty cool.  

We spoke a lot about their curation process as that is really one of the most amazing things they do at Pickathon. They have an innate ability to curate lineups year after year that have both a large number of alternative music fan’s favourite acts as well as a bunch of new kids on the block that end up blowing up in the coming years. It’s so impressive, they have totally unique lineups every year and  just don’t seem to miss, ever. When asked how they do it Zale had this to say. (I really like the way he said it so I really just transcribed everything he said.) 

“The way we approach it is kinda through just asking friends and open sourcing different magazines and music critics and just basically deep diving in genres. Not necessarily picking many things we can’t do, you know, there's things that are just too big for us. We start early really just lumping it all in and what ends up happening every time is a lot of it’s obscure, not everyone knows about it but somebodies like super jazzed on it somewhere. It's like things are coming out and you give it enough time and patience and you can really boil it down and it's, ya you kinda just have faith it’s gonna happen. Cuz in that stew of friends and regional stuff there’s amazing shit everywhere and then it happens over and over. Like some stuff is super obvious you know, just like super obvious, like margo cilker. And then some are less obvious and we’ve always been a bit not caring about draw. I don’t know, did I answer the question?” Adding on he told me, “It’s kinda scary, every year you feel like you can't do it again but it never ends up being like that.” 

Zale also wanted to bring attention to the many people who put so much time and effort into making Pickathon what it is. “Each one of these areas takes a really significant effort from a group of people to make”. The festival had a major redesign this year, lots of new and/or changes to the stages to keep people in the shade of the trees during the day and he wanted to make sure I understood how much he appreciated each team of people involved with setting up every part of the festival, they put so much effort into not only the design but also being a no waste festival. The backstage area we were in for example was made entirely out of repurposed wood from an old Google product launch stage and it looked amazing. 

All in all, Pickathon is the perfect festival for true music lovers. Wether I buy a ticket, volunteer or get to cover it again I’ll be going for the rest of my life no doubt. I just hope that one day I also get to experience it as a performer too.