Indie folk trio Wild Rivers will kick off the 35th annual Peterborough Folk Festival in mid-August.
Organizers on Wednesday said the platinum-selling group will perform at the Market Hall Performing Arts Centre in downtown Peterborough on Thursday, Aug. 15.
Billed as the longest-running free folk festival in Canada, the festival will feature shows at downtown venues on Aug. 16 and then shift to Nicholls Oval Park for the weekend for two days of music and other activities for all ages. Admission to the weekend shows is free. with Miskin Law as the main stage sponsor.
“What better way to celebrate a milestone year for the Peterborough Folk Festival than to have a band of Wild Rivers’ calibre perform at the inaugural event,” festival artistic director Ryan Kemp said.
Wild Rivers consists of Khalid Yassein (guitar, vocals, keys), Devan Glover (vocals) and Andrew Oliver (lead guitar, synthethizers). Since their 2022 album, Sidelines, which landed at number nine on the U.S. Spotify Debut Album Chart, they have supported The Chicks on their North American tour. Their 2020 breakout single Thinking ‘Bout Love was certified Gold in Australia and Platinum in Canada.
The festival says Wild Rivers has earned more than 450 million streams with four million monthly listeners and was nominated for Breakthrough Group of The Year at the 2023 Juno Awards.
In a statement, Glover says the band pulls from a spectrum of sounds, pop, rock, indie and folk for each song’s blueprint.
“We all converge on the classic songwriters,” Glover said. “Paul Simon, Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, Fleetwood Mac, The Beatles and Elton John. Then today, we have influences across the map, indie, hip hop, R&B, and pop. But even in those genres, most of those artists are referencing another era of music, which we think is really cool. We like to pull our favourite parts of every genre and patch them together and see what works and see what feels good.”
Tickets for the Aug. 15 are available online.
Festival board chair Rob Davis says the festival plans to welcome 15,000 people to the area this summer and support is needed.
“We are currently seeking additional volunteers, sponsors, local artisan vendors, and emerging artist submissions,” he said.
For more information on how to help the festival, visit its official website.
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