Up Here reveals first wave of artists for 10th anniversary
This is a four-day trip you won’t want to miss.
Buckle up and grab some snacks: Up Here has just announced the first wave of artists that will be in Sudbury for their 10th edition, running August 15 to 18, 2024—yep, it starts on the Thursday.
For 10 years, Up Here has transformed Sudbury into a visual and musical weird adventure with a now-famous combination of murals, installations, and musical performances by both established and emerging musicians.
Punks will be pleased perennial favourites PUP (short for “Pathetic Use of Potential,” if you didn’t know) are headlining with their mosh-friendly, indie pop punk. Attendees will also get to see synth-pop maven Allie X, who’s taking a break from writing bangers for BTS, impressing Katy Perry, and selling out her North American tour, to hit the stage in Sudbury. Hip hop fans will be thrilled to hear 2024 Juno Award winning rapper TOBi—from Lagos, Nigeria by way of Brampton, Ontario—will be gracing the mainstage with his pristine raps over swirling soundscapes. There will also be an intimate, personal set of poetry, music, and storytelling with Beverly Glenn-Copeland and friends for “The Salon Evening”; he’s an iconic electronic (and so much more!) musician, who you might recognize if you grew up watching Mr. Dressup, and whose career experienced a renaissance when his album Keyboard Fantasies from 1986 was rediscovered by a Japanese record collector in 2016—this one's a deeply special opportunity not many will get.
After that, there's some serious noise, starting with Yonatan Gat and Maalem Hassan BenJaafar, Grammy-nominated Moroccan gnawa master, who will trance you out with their traditional Berber music magically reassembled into dirty rock. Even if you’re afraid of spiders, you won’t want to miss Anachnid, the Oji-Cree spider-musician who’ll weave a sonic web with her dark electro-pop, try not to get stuck dancing. The groovy vibes continue with Corridor, the indie psych group—fresh from a hall of fame performance at SXSW. Buzzy Montreal art-punks La Sécurité will delight and exhaust with certified bangers, a little B-52s and a little DEVO and a lot entirely their own thing.
For their final tour (yes, ever!) Pelada is returning with their energizing dance-punk accompanied by lead-singer Chris Vargas yelling at you beautifully in Spanish. And Alix Fernz’s brand-new, barely known, strange ventures into post-punk will be unlike anything else. If none of that is intense enough, Slash Need’s chaotic and experimental dark techno/post-hardcore, which “feels like a machete hacking away at parts of your physical and mental body,” might do the trick. There’s more dancing with NADUH’s blend of rhythmic rap with dreamy harmonies—think Spice Girls, now with more guts. Finally, get your pentagram ready, Witch Prophet is conjuring up soundscapes of vocal layers, loops, raps, and harmonies on a bed of hip-hop, jazz, and soul-inspired beats—no eye of newt here.
A second wave of over 40 artists will be announced in June.
Over on the visual side … have you ever played “I spy” on a long drive? You’ll have no shortage of source material on the mean streets of Sudbury.
Headlining the murals is Miss Me, infamously known as “Montreal's premier art vandal” and a certified feminist badass, with her vibrant, chaotic creations. Who else can say Madonna bought a piece of their art? Fatspatrol will grace a building with her bold graphic style and poetic personal stories that evoke her experience as a “3rd culture kid.”
Anaïs Lera’s NASA-explored, alien-like landscapes with a psychedelic twist will grace a wall downtown, too—the Vancouver-based French muralist is already digging into our ’70s NASA visit and SNOLAB sciences for inspiration. Shelby Gagnon is a two-spirit Anishinaabe/Cree artist from Aroland First Nation who’s coming down to explore the intersections of body, mind, spirit, Indigenous identity, and our world. And then North Bay’s Corbin Elliot, who spent 14 days helping Jean-Paul Langlois with his piece on the Sudbury Theatre Centre last year, will be painting his first solo mural.
Headlining installations is Quinn Hopkins, a mixed-Anishinaabe artist from Toronto, but fresh from a residency in Banff, who works with digital art, projection mapping, and augmented reality. Chrix Morix is an illustrator and projection artist who lives, loves, and works in Saskatoon, Treaty Six Territory, and he’ll be taking over an alley with his GIF- and play-inspired works. And then Miskwa the MAD Clown, a character who’s part of “Keeoukaywin” (Michif for visiting), will be riding around town on a bike delivering tarot readings throughout the festival. Finally, Studio Nude Beach is coming back to take over the Dome with one of their memorably psychedelic and interactive installations.
Worried you’ll miss the boat? Snag a passport before they run out so you can hop freely between multiple venues, discover music along the way, and skip the lines at the pop-up bar on the main festival site! Passes can be purchased at uphere.com/passes. If you miss out on the passport, tickets to individual shows will be available in June!
Up Here has been able to thrive with the support of countless allies. A special thanks to the Government of Canada, Government of Ontario, Ontario Arts Council, Ontario Cultural Attractions Fund, City of Greater Sudbury, Sudbury Tourism, Downtown Sudbury, Barrydowne Paint, Equipment World, Greater Sudbury Utilities, Gateway City Brewery, Collective Arts Brewing, Crosscut Distillery, CBC’s Up North, Northeastern Ontario Tourism, ICI Radio-Canada Ontario, Hot 93.5 FM, Rewind 103.9 FM, NORCAT, Sandvik, Dr. Clean, Beacon Lite, Galerie du Nouvel-Ontario, Théâtre du Nouvel-Ontario, Exclaim!, Studio123, Sudbury Theatre/YES Theatre, YMCA of Northeastern Ontario, Quality Inn, Agilis Networks, Collège Boréal and many more. To partner up with Up Here, visit uphere.com/partnerup.
