Dizzy and Donovan Woods
Royal Botanical Gardens // Hamilton, Canada // July 6th, 2019
Photos and review by Karen K. Tran
The afternoon started off hot and humid – typical of a July day in Southern Ontario. But as the festival went on, the weather took a turn for the worse and unfortunately a nearing thunderstorm forced festival organizers to cancel the event.
Before the event was shut down, people got to enjoy opening band, Dizzy. The Oshawa indie pop band loosened up the crowd with their elegant performance. Lead singer Katie Munshaw took her time traversing across the stage and looked completely confident while singing delicate moments of songs like “Swim” and “Pretty Thing.”
Dizzy
Next up was Donovan Woods, who was sedentary onstage but brought humour to his set. He dedicated his song “Truck Full of Money” to Kawhi Leonard, who had recently announced his departure from the Toronto Raptors following their huge NBA win. Near the end of his set, a light rain started to fall which was a temporary cool relief from the heat. Roadies were setting up the stage for Dan Mangan who was set to perform next, but then the torrential rain moved in and started pouring.
Dedicated audience members tried to wait it out – some prepared with rain ponchos, but most just standing drenched in the rain – but after a few minutes, the weather didn’t seem to let up and festival organizers asked everyone to leave the grounds and take shelter. Most people took refuge in their cars, but some people waited under nearby trees.
Donovan Woods
After about 20 minutes of heavy rain, the storm passed and it seemed hopeful that the festival would reopen. Dan Mangan was greeted with cheers by the fans who had waited in the rain at the venue entrance, and performed a few acoustic songs like “Robots” and “Troubled Mind” amidst the crowd. However, security had to ask people to leave because there was going to be a second rainstorm coming through soon.
Headlining band, The Strumbellas, were forced to cancel their hometown show and would be issuing refunds to ticket holders. There hasn’t been any update as to whether the show will be rescheduled at a later date.
