Returning in a haze of smoke for the third year is Calgary’s 420 Music & Arts Festival slated for the weekend of April 18-20, 2019. This three-day festival celebrates the 420 culture with a varied selection of stoner, sludge and psychedelic music, and the 2019 edition promises a solid lineup of local and international talent. The full festival pass is $60 CAD in advance, with single day tickets and other ticket packages available.

A new addition to the festival this year is a custom 420 Music & Arts Festival beer, which will be unveiled prior to the fest on March 29, 2019, at New Level Brewery with musical accompaniment from Hypnopilot and tasty munchies provided by Dogzilla. A standalone event from the festival, the admission is $10 and includes the first pint. Capacity is limited to 50 people, but the beer will be available at the festival and liquor stores in the vicinity of the festival venue.

Facebook event link
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The main event will take place at the County Line Saloon April 18-20, 2019 and will include the musical stylings of Crobot, Valley of the Sun, Disenchanter, Mark Deutrom‘s Bellringer, The Grudge, Great Electric Quest and more! Expanding the genre selection even more than past years, there is something for every rock and metal lover from groovy rock, to hard rock blues, to party metal and sludgy psychedelic rock.

​Three nights featuring both veteran and up and coming artists in the stoner rock/doom metal genre culminated in the grande finale of Calgary’s second annual 420 Music & Arts Festival, which chugged on to its conclusion on April 21.  I was impressed by every single band that graced the stage on night 1 of the fest, and by all accounts, night 2—which featured La Chinga, Buffalo Bud Buster, and a DJ set by ex-Kyuss drummer Brant Bjork, to name but a few—kept the bar high.  I’m still kicking myself for not being able to attend that night.

Fast forward to night 3, which was off to an early 17:00 start, given the nine bands on the bill.  YYC’s own two-piece Pelican Death Squad—consisting of none other than host venue co-owners Sean Close (guitar, vox) and Mark Russell (drums, vox)—kicked things off with their raucous metal/punk/stoner/thrash hybrid.  I can’t help but smile whenever I think of their band name, which may very well be my personal favourite.   As one might expect, PDS didn’t take themselves too seriously and ensured an appropriately light-hearted opening to an event honouring good ol’ Mary Jane.

Next, Saskatoon’s Black Hell Oil took the stage like a big rig belching pot fumes while thundering down a dusty highway.  With one foot planted firmly in the glory days of their hard-rockin’ forefathers, the trio played a catchy blend of stoner metal with an element of southern boogie and a hint of punk.  BHO’s music has elicited comparisons to Kyuss, Sleep, C’Mon, Budgie and Blue Cheer, which are fair.  Yet hearing the material they performed from their brand new debut album, Choke On This (2018), and the earlier Smoke You Up EP (2014), it’s evident that they are far more than the sum of their influences.  If you’re a fan of straight up, high energy, unpretentious rock, check Black Hell Oil out.

Winnipeg’s Ogimaa took BHO’s rig and made a sharp ninety degree turn with it, veering off the prairie highway and into a wooded bog.  It may still have been sunny outside the venue, but doom’s shadowy tendrils descended inside Distortion as Bellowing Nomad, Tyrannical Barbarian, and Lumbering Shaman united in their lamentations on the Desolation (2017) of a bleak world.  Despair set in as listeners did what they could to resist suffocating in the rising sludge of Ogimaa’s mire, to no avail.  Down, down, down the spectators went, under the weight of vocalist and drummer Chris Driscoll’s concrete wails (as an aside, I’m always awed whenever I see that a band’s drummer is also their lead singer).

Vancouver’s HERON pulled the audience ever deeper into the lightless depths beneath the water’s of the Ogimaa swamp, holding them there until the surface of the bog froze beneath A Low Winter’s Sun (2018). Self-proclaimed recipients of the Best Band No One Gets There Early Enough To See 2016 and Best Vocalist Who Doesn't Look Like They Can Scream Like That 2017 awards, plenty were there this time around to witness HERON’s existential meditations.  Lead shrieker Jamie Stilborn alternately hung from the mic stand like a forlorn scarecrow, then metamorphosed into a flailing, restless spirit before returning once again to despondency.  Just when one might have been tempted to write the band off for having the subtlety of a thousand jackhammers, they led the audience into gentle breakdowns and exquisitely atmospheric passages.  I took the samples in “Parallels Of A Knife Fight” to heart.  HERON’s post-rock doom offered the fest’s most challenging and intense experience this side of headliners Dopethrone.  Having hit sludge bottom, where to from here?

Fellow Vancouverites Chunkasaurus broke through the frozen swamp and hauled the rig back onto the highway, on the original trajectory set by Pelican Death Squad and Black Hell Oil.  With focused songs and monster riffs that ground existential crises and art rock experimentation under oversized saurian tails, these guys kicked the 420 rock ’n’ roll party back into top gear.  Fearless, VS. The Falcannon (2014) that swooped down out of the twilight to menace fest-goers, they kept the ginormous mecha-raptor at bay with their high speed punk-and-classic-metal-tinged stoner rock.  I dare you not to stomp and head bang when the chunkster calls.

Local scene vets The Electric Revival cranked the funky grooves and psychedelia up several notches, opening their set with a lengthy stream of consciousness spoken word intro in which vocalist/guitarist Ian Dillon reminisced about playing Distortion on the venue’s opening night years ago, among many many other things.  The band mesmerized the audience with a meandering version of “Rolling Stone”, complete with bad-ass theremin-guitar solos.  Dillion even went so far as to allow folks in the frontline to have a go at their own theremin solos.  Although not familiar with TER’s music prior to the show, I’m pretty sure that they only got through three or four numbers during their set (if that), caught up as they were in artistic spontaneity under herbal influence.  Their astounding chemistry kept the audience in the moment, and while I usually don’t care for extended jams, these guys were so good that when they got a hold of me, they never let go.  It certainly didn’t hurt that TER were among the most unique sounding bands at the festival.

Now, back to Saskatchewan went the rig, reaching Regina just in time to connect with the Orbital Express.  These guys also had a killer drummer, Adam Ennis, on lead vocal duty.  If slick space rock with big shiny choruses and even fatter 80s style backing vocals is your thing, then the songs they played from Light Years From Home (2017) and their 2010 self-titled debut would have been right up your alley.

The fuzzy guitars and mountainous doom riffs of Victoria’s Buzzard’s conjured their namesake tearing apart the roadkill left in the wake of the careening eastbound Orbital Express.  The trio’s gritty sound, dark poetry, and their howling vocals—on the bluesy “Wolf Cries Moon” in particular—suggested a gravel-voiced Glenn Danzig wandering the desert in search of Kyuss, with results even greater and more distinct than one might have imagined.  It worked for me, and, by the looks of it, for everyone else at the show as well.  Buzzard were without doubt a festival highlight for many attendees.

By the time we pulled into our ultimate virtual destination, Montreal, some spectators had already been on their feet for the better part of seven and a half hours.  Did they have enough fuel left in the tank for festival headliners Dopethrone (who—appropriately enough, given the unfolding narrative of this review—feature a ghostly locomotive on the cover of their also aptly named upcoming album, TransCanadian Anger)?  Hell yeah.  The band wasted no time purveying the finest “slutch metal,” which they describe as “a foul Canadian mix of yellow snow, crackhead diarrhea, blood, tears and broken dreams.”  Dreaded guitarist/vocalist Vince was the classic portrayal of wild-eyed drug fiend and rock star leading a life of excess, chugging liquid courage from a full bottle of whisky that he had brought with him on stage.  Make of that what you will.  That said, he was quite generous when it came to sharing his booze with ardent followers.  As the show went on, Dopethrone’s ritualistic, droning, and dirge-like brand of somnambulant blackened doom metal, combined with bleak samples and Vince’s guttural rasping, threatened to crush the souls of hapless listeners beneath an oppressive shroud.  If you haven’t listened to them before, let me tell you, their stuff sounds really evil.  Whatever high spirits attendees might have regained after emerging from the icy mire at the night’s midpoint, could have completely evaporated during this final set... yet the Montreal doom lords only inspired the devout.  By then, those without the mental fortitude to withstand Dopethrone’s oppressiveness had already vacated the premises.  The group commands such loyalty that one of their die hard fans came all the way from New York to catch their Calgary show, and to reward that guy’s devotion, they invited him on stage to perform a song with the band.

Then, unbelievable as it may have seemed given the length of this last sonic marathon, the fest was over at last.  What a lineup, and what an epic, virtual cross-Canada odyssey festival goers had experienced.  C.C. Getty and Celestia Scarlet at Metalheads United, event volunteers, Distortion staff, production crew, and bands—take a bow for the incredible success that was Calgary’s 420 Music & Arts Festival 2018!

Written and photographed by Xavier Cattarinich
​(Ravenkin Photography)

(C) 2018 www.metalmasterkingdom.com

April 19, 2018
@ Distortion
Calgary, AB, Canada

Presented by Metalheads United

​The 420 Music & Arts Festival is three days of rad music, eclectic art, food trucks, vendors, beard contests and more!
Presented by Metalheads United the festival takes place April 19, 20 & 21 at Distortion Live Music Venue in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.

Day 1 -  April 19 2018
Event: www.facebook.com/events/1409803245795383/