Harvest Jazz and blues is truly a magical time. It’s been 25 years since the festival began and this year was no exception to the spell that’s cast every September. Queen Street is blocked off, tents go up and music starts playing in every corner of a four-block radius. Thousands of people come from far and wide to take in the buskers, food trucks and artists crowding the street. Our quiet little white-collar town and its people are transformed. Whether it’s your eccentric high-school teacher or the quiet and unassuming cashier at Sobeys, Harvest is a cultural rite of passage for locals and visitors alike.
Walk into any venue on a Wednesday, Thursday, Friday or Saturday night and it’s Harvest energy in a nutshell. People are either dancing or catching up with old friends they haven’t seen since last year. Plastic beer cups are cheers’d, belly laughs are shared. Others wave arms wildly above their head, ultimate-hardcore passes flailing across their chests to the same beat. A tuba and/or saxophone is wailing away on stage. Crowds are dense and rowdy elbows abound. No one cares though, because the music is great. It’s muggy and the heat is like a blanket – how could it not be with thousands of people grooving madly to legendary, world-class jazz and blues acts?
It’s a festival of traditions both new and old. The big wig venues will always boast big number turn-outs, but it’s the impromptu jam sessions and after-party shenanigans that make the memories. There’s nothing like catching your friend’s band at a local pub, remembering the days when they weren’t even getting bookings.
Restaurants are at capacity, kegs are emptied and there’s a buzz everywhere you go. Staff and volunteers run around hysterically by day. By night, you catch them taking in their favourite show, expressions melting with the music. It’s all worth it. Everybody’s most joyful selves come out of the woodwork. It’s safe to say Harvest is itself the woodwork, a lifeblood we all share for seven days. Fredericton is proud to cultivate such amazing amounts of talent. Technically, Harvest is one of the smallest festivals running, but it’s got the biggest beating heart. The festival’s reach is phenomenal, with internationally acclaimed artists continuing to flood in. You wake up Sunday already excited for what next year has to offer. For this, we say thank-you Harvest, thank-you.
