The Peterborough Folk Festival has announced Juno award-winning pop-folk band The East Pointers will kick off this year’s festival as the headliners at a ticketed concert at Market Hall Performing Arts Centre in downtown Peterborough on Thursday, August 17th, with Ottawa-based roots singer-songwriter Mimi O’Bonsawin and Peterborough fiddling sensation Irish Millie opening.
Tickets for the 7 p.m. show are $36 for assigned cabaret table seating and $34 for regular assigned seating. Tickets are available in person at the Market Hall box office at 140 Charlotte Street from 12 to 5 p.m. Monday to Friday or online anytime at tickets.markethall.org.
Formed in Prince Edward Island in 2014 by guitarist Jake Charron, banjoist Koady Chaisson, and fiddler Tim Chaisson, The East Pointers perform Celtic-influenced original songs and instrumentals with contemporary influences including pop and electronic dance music. The trio first began performing in Atlantic Canada before touring Ontario, and released their debut album Secret Victory in late 2015, which won Traditional Roots Albums of the Year at the 2017 Juno awards.
Known for their energetic, musically complex, and technically brilliant performances, the group also won the Canadian Folk Music Award for Ensemble of the Year at the Canadian Folk Music Awards in 2016 and were also nominated for Instrumental Group of the Year, a nomination they received again in 2018.
They released their second album What We Leave Behind in 2017, followed by Yours to Break in 2019, earning them Songwriter of the Year at the 2020 East Coast Music Awards, after taking home the Song of the Year award for “Two Weeks” the year before.
Yours to Break includes the single “Wintergreen” — an infectious tune that became the theme song for the New Zealand comedy-drama series Under the Vines.
VIDEO: “Wintergreen” – The East Pointers
“I want people to sing along when the song comes on — there’s a great band, The East Pointers, and they very beautifully gave us the theme song,” says actress Rebecca Gibney, who plays the lead character Daisy Monroe, in a 2021 interview with Nerds That Geek. “I want people to be able to sing along to that song when they hear it. I want it to get ingrained into their heads because again, it’s joyous. It’s something that you’re skipping to in the kitchen afterwards.”
The infectious joy that is The East Pointers was shattered in January 2022 when Koady Chaisson suddenly passed away at the age of 37 from a previously unknown health condition.
“He was definitely the driving force behind the band,” says bandmate and Koady’s cousin Jake Charron in a CBC documentary. “We all were in it together, but a lot of the success we had is because of Koad’s ambition. He’d be spending an extra two hours in the studio trying to write the next song. He put everything into it.”
VIDEO: The East Pointers featured on CBC’s “Following Folk”
After Koady’s death, the two surviving band members posted a tribute on their Facebook page.
“It was eight years ago that Koady turned his life around. He got sober, changed his habits, and dove into healing himself — the kind that many run away from. Just after this, when times were especially tough for him, the three of us made it a point to build on our musical friendship that had been stewing in the background for a few years prior.”
“As more people heard him play, and took in his tunes and the stories he would tell, he slowly started feeling like he had something to give back to the world. Writing and performing for you became his medicine.”
Last September, seven months after Koady’s death, Jake and Tim announced they would continue as The East Pointers.
They released the seven-track EP House Of Dreams, which included music they had already recorded with Koady.
This past May at the 2023 East Coast Music Awards, that EP earned the band three awards out of six nominations: Contemporary Roots Recording of the Year, Group Recording of the Year, and Pop Recording of the Year.
The East Pointers’ Market Hall show will be their first public concert as a duo without their late bandmate Koady.
VIDEO: “Stronger Than You Know” – The East Pointers
Opening for The East Pointers are Mimi O’Bonsawin and Irish Millie.
Originally from northeastern Ontario and now based in Ottawa, Mimi O’Bonsawin is a contemporary roots singer-songwriter whose story-driven songs embrace the beauty of the land as well as her Franco-Ontarian and Abenaki roots. She released her debut album Mimi in 2014, and was awarded Best Pop Album at the 2019 Indigenous Music Awards for her 2017 record Connected. Her latest album Willow was released this year.
Going by the stage name of Irish Millie, Peterborough’s Amelia “Millie” Shadgett is a 16-year-old fiddle player who loves to play east coast, bluegrass, and contemporary traditional styles, particularly driving and up-beat tunes that get the crowd up on their feet. She was nominated twice as Young Performer of the Year at the Canadian Folk Music Awards as Young Performer of the Year, in 2022 for her debut album Thirteen and in 2023 for her work with Ottawa-based sisters Fern and Willow Marwood as the trio The Receivers.
In June, Irish Millie and rockabilly guitarist Nicholas Campbell were named as the joint recipients of Peterborough Folk Festival’s 2023 Emerging Artist Award.
VIDEO: Here’s to the Women – Mimi O’Bonsawin
VIDEO: “Meals By Maurice” by The Receivers
Along with the Market Hall show, the Peterborough Folk Festival has announced blues musicians Angelique Francis and Emily Burgess will be performing at the Gordon Best Theatre in downtown Peterborough on Friday, August 18th.
The ticketed concerts are followed by an admission-by-donation weekend of music, food, and culture on Saturday, August 19th and Sunday, August 20th at Nicholls Oval Park. Acclaimed alt-rockers Broken Social Scene will be the Saturday headliner and renowned Canadian singer-songwriter Loreena McKennitt will be the Sunday headliner, with Juno award-winning children’s music duo Splash’N Boots also performing on Sunday. Organizers will be announcing the complete line-up of performers soon.
For more information about the festival, including how to get involved as an artist, volunteer, or vendor, visit www.peterboroughfolkfest.com.
kawarthaNOW is proud to be a media sponsor of the 2023 Peterborough Folk Festival.
