Interstellar Rodeo is coming to Winnipeg and with it, some new traditions

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This article was published 12/08/2015 (4069 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Grab your tarps, Winnipeg — there’s a new festival in town.

Interstellar Rodeo kicks off its inaugural Winnipeg weekend on Friday night, and though it may seem like just another summer music festival, the premise is slightly different.

Interstellar is primarily about the music, yes, but it’s also about wine — lots and lots of wine. And good wine, too. Wine that has been carefully chosen and brought in from several specialty shops throughout the city. Wine that gets served to you while you sit on your blanket or tarp or in your chair. And, most importantly, wine that’s specifically meant to enhance the listening experience of the musicians on stage.

“You either have the folk festival style, where there’s wine, but it’s cheap and cheerful, or you have the sort of Molson Canadian-type rock festival, where there’s wine, but it’s expensive and cheerful,” says the president of Interstellar Rodeo, Shauna de Cartier, from Toronto. “There’s not that many festivals where you could get a great glass of wine and watch some great music at the same time.”

Here’s how it will work: the festival will take place at The Forks, but the entire festival grounds will be licensed, so attendees have the option of enjoying their drinks at their seats, as opposed to being relegated to a single tent. Near the arrival gate, there will be a place to purchase drink tickets. Performers at the festival have been paired with a wine that will get served while that performer is on stage. Servers will walk around with trays of the featured wine; if it’s appealing, you just hand over one of the drink tickets. If not, a new featured wine will come around once the next performer starts.

“The idea is that you can sit back, enjoy fantastic music and have somebody bring you a fantastic glass of wine, and it just feels luxurious and fabulous,” says De Cartier. “It is a smaller, more intimate affair, so we have the opportunity to treat everybody like a VIP.”

The wine pairings were curated by the Winnipeg Free Press’s wine columnist Ben MacPhee-Sigurdson, who worked with three private wine stores — Banville & Jones, the Winehouse and Kenaston Wine Market — to choose the most appropriate wines to accompany each artist.

“I approached the stores, asked them to send me some wine-and-music pairings based on the Winnipeg Interstellar Rodeo lineup, and whittled it down from there, making a few changes/suggestions based on white-versus-red balance, as well as a couple go-with-your-gut tweaks when inspired,” he says.

“For example, Hawksley Workman plays by his own rules, constantly re-inventing himself throughout his career. Yet there’s always been something quintessentially Canadian about his music — something that speaks to where he’s from. The American Gothic painting was a take on the pioneer spirit in the same way Workman is a pioneering singer-songwriter. The Canadian Gothic 2012 red riffs on the famous painting, yet is also quintessentially Canadian, a blend of Cabernet and Merlot whose rustic, dark berry-driven flavours also speak to where they’re from, specifically, the Niagara Peninsula.”

De Cartier, who was the mastermind behind Interstellar’s first festival in Edmonton in 2012, says the concept came about as she considered what the ideal festival situation would be for her — basically making herself her own target market — and that included the ability to get a nice glass of vino. But she’s not all about the wine — as founder of Six Shooter Records, the musical lineup is equally important to her.

“Artistic excellence is the forefront of what we do at Six Shooter, and we want the festival, musically, to reflect the kind of artistic programming we do with our label,” she says. “Obviously there’s a lot more opportunity to describe the breadth of our musical taste when we can look beyond on our roster to program artists.”

For Winnipeg’s first Interstellar Rodeo, a diverse collection of artists will be hitting the stage all weekend, starting the evening of Friday, Aug. 14, at 5:50 p.m. (gates open at 4:30 p.m.). Throughout the weekend, festival-goers will be treated to performances by the likes of Steve Earle, his son Justin Townes Earle, Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings, July Talk, Tanya Tagaq and Vance Joy, among many others. Headliners include veterans Dwight Yoakam, Blue Rodeo and Sarah McLachlan, who stepped up at the last minute after original Friday headliner Sinéad O’Connor cancelled due to exhaustion.

“When we started the festival in Edmonton the first year, we booked Sinéad O’Connor and she cancelled, so we’re starting a festival in Winnipeg and in our first year we book Sinéad O’Connor and she cancels… this is a familiar experience,” says De Cartier with a laugh. “We’re so happy that Sarah McLachlan is headlining our Friday, and that she’ll be backed by Whitehorse. It’s going to be really special.”

The decision to bring Interstellar Rodeo to Winnipeg was an easy one for De Cartier, who had nothing but positive things to say about the city.

“Winnipeg is a fabulous city. For me, as an Edmontonian, I feel so much affinity to Winnipeg — the two cities are so similar in their culture and their outlook,” she says. “It’s also not over-saturated with festivals — like, Toronto has 150 festivals. Winnipeg has a couple of really good ones, but there’s room, I think, in the market for another one.

“We’re jumping through every hoop that we can to make this festival awesome.”

For the performance schedule and the full list of wine/artist pairings, visit interstellarrodeo.com/Winnipeg.

Erin.lebar@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @NireRabel