Hopped and Confused brings all Canadian lineup to Mill St Brew Pub

The second annual Hopped and Confused festival kicked off at Ottawa’s Mill Street Brewery last night. Dine Alone Records had once again outdone themselves with bringing a fantastic all Canadian lineup to the festival, and the crowd seemed more than pleased.

Last night’s shenanigans started with Toronto’s Sam Coffey & The Iron Lungs who always put on a great show, but I sadly missed them only by a couple of minutes.

Vancouver’s indie sweethearts Said The Whale took the stage next and managed to pack some of their biggest hits into their short, half an hour set. As the sun started to set half way through the show, the band needed to pause the heartfelt Emily Rose when an over hopped festival goer needed to be removed from the audience with the help of the security and the law enforcement, but were able to continue their set until the end without further incidents.

Yukon Blonde that mixes indie pop rock to electronic elements, put on a hypnotizing show with a beautiful light show and got the audience dancing. the singer Jeff Innes certainly knows how to take his crowd and watching the guitarist Brandon Scott’s energetic stage presence was just a cherry on top. The band a world class act and I can easily see them performing on bigger and bigger stages.

Much expected The Trews closed the night off with their hour and half set of their biggest radio tunes mixed with Led Zeppelin’s Good Times Bad Times turning into Poor Old Brokenhearted me, and Highway of Heroes turning into John Lennon’s Imagine.

Singer Colin MacDonald joked in between songs about the quantity of songs about drinking on their repertoire which he said is purely because they write songs about topics they know the best. Towards the end of the show MacDonald wrapped the Nova Scotia flag around his neck as a tribute to the band’s home province, and with ten minutes left until the 11pm curfew, returned on stage for an encore with acoustic versions of Ishmael and Maggie and Yearning, and finished with a bang with Hold Me In Your Arms.

Hopped and Confused continues tonight with Day 2 with another killer lineup starting with New Swears, Dilly Dally and Hollerado and closing the night with Tokyo Police Club.