When the first chord chimes through the sound system at this year’s Sunshine Music Festival it will be coming from the hands of local talent.
Lukah Bouchard Band has been selected to open the popular summer festival with a noon-hour performance on Saturday, September 5. The band is the latest addition to a lineup that features other up-and-comers like Steph Cameron, alongside headliners WiL and Michael Bernard Fitzgerald.
“We always have a few spots set aside for local talent,” said Clay Brander, the festival’s artistic director for nine years. “We had Laura and Allen Wallace in there but…they had to cancel, so we had a spot available and I was anxious to get Lukah in there. I’d heard so much good stuff about him.”
Lukah took Powell River’s indie rock scene by storm earlier this year after a solo performance at Base Camp Coffee for the Music Revolution’s Breeding Ground concert series. And, if his surname sounds familiar, it’s because Lukah’s father Ben is an acclaimed singer-songwriter. The two shared the stage together at a previous instalment of the festival.
More recently, the younger Bouchard had given up playing. After a year at audio engineering school in Vancouver, he became frustrated and uncertain about a future in the arts. “I was kind of beat and was down on my luck or whatever, and had to sell my guitar and didn’t really have anything going,” said Lukah.
The 27-year-old decided to travel while he figured out his next step, living in Australia for a year before settling in Victoria. There, he felt music beginning to call him home.
“I’d always be playing my buddies’ guitars,” said Lukah. “I’d go over to their place and I’d pick it up, and then finally I decided to buy myself a nice guitar and get back into it. It’s something else that you feel when you’re up on stage that’s not really parallel to anything else like that in my life, so I couldn’t say no. I knew that I wanted to, I just needed to be inspired and motivate myself and develop songwriting because it takes a lot of practice.”
Over the past few months, Lukah has written a variety of songs inspired by Radiohead, Low Roar and My Morning Jacket. He assembled a trio consisting of Ben Wayne Kyle on guitar and Ben Wittrock on drums to join him for a recent performance at Powell River Sea Fair. At Sunshine Music Festival the band will also be joined by Jasper Sassaman on bass. The band has 10 or 11 original songs lined up for the performance and a five-song recording in the works.
“I’m looking forward to hearing him live at the festival,” said Brander, highlighting the importance of talent over notoriety as a dominating factor in his selection of performers. “A lot of the guys are up and coming. We don’t book big names here or anything like that.”
Many do become big though, as Brander has often seen. Sunshine Music Festival has hosted Peak Performance Project winners Good for Grapes and Current Swell in the past, along with Juno award-winners David Francey and Old Man Luedecke. Indie darlings Hey Ocean made an appearance in their formative years as well.
“There have been quite a few of them who have done pretty well for themselves and have the potential to go on and do something big,” said Brander.
Sunshine Music Festival will return to its longtime home at Palm Beach Park on Saturday, September 5, and Sunday, September 6. For more information regarding performers or tickets, readers can visit the festival's website.
