Saturday 05 November 2005
at The Stone Distillery Fermenting Cellar
The Distillery District
55 Mill Street Toronto ON Canada
15:00 – 01:00

Tickets are $25 :: available in Toronto at Soundscapes, Rotate This, CD Replay on Yonge, and online at www.ukula.com

++ To purchase tickets to BRIGHT LIGHTS FESTIVAL 2005 click here!!

UKULA is excited to announce its biggest music event yet—Toronto’s Distillery District will host UKULA's Bright Lights Festival on Saturday 05 November.

This festival-style event will be a unique concert experience featuring some of the most exciting emerging talent from the UK and from two of Canada's most musically charged cities, Toronto and Montréal.

The Bright Lights Festival’s UK headliners are ELBOW (Manchester, V2), in one of only two North American appearances this year. They are joined by compatriots THE DUKE SPIRIT (London, Loog), who will be making their Canadian debut.

Montréal will be represented by ISLANDS (Rough Trade), the new outlet for former UNICORNS members Nick Diamonds and J’aime Tambeur, and by THE CALL-UP, an extraordinary new band featuring members of THE DEARS, THE STILLS, THE SNITCHES and CAFEINE.

Toronto’s contribution to the bill includes next-big-thing THE MELIGROVE BAND, V2 Records’ first ever Canadian signing. UKULA is also pleased to present some of the most compelling young artists Toronto has to offer in STIRLING and THE COAST.

Bright Lights Festival by UKULA
…presenting the best in UK and Canadian independent music…

Line-Up:

ELBOW (www.elbow.co.uk) are passion personified. From the dark, breathless romance of their lauded recordings, to singer Guy Garvey's eyes-shut, stock-still intensity on-stage, Elbow's tales of life, love and politics will stir your soul. Make you care. Inspire devotion.

Elbow are Mark Potter (guitar), Richard Jupp (drums), Craig Potter (organ), Pete Turner (bass) and Guy Garvey (vocals). They’ve been playing together for 14 years, and have released three albums on V2 Records. Their first, 2001’s Asleep in the Back, was nominated for the Mercury Music Prize and the accolades that greeted their second, Cast of Thousands, propelled them to the main stage at England’s legendary Glastonbury Festival. Elbow’s latest recording, Leaders of the Free World, was released in the UK on 12 September to much acclaim. The album, hailed as a “masterpiece” by the NME, will be formally released in North America in early 2006.

Elbow’s appearance at UKULA's Bright Lights Festival is one of only two North American dates they’ll be playing in 2005, and their first Toronto show in three years; they will return for a full tour next year. They will be following this Toronto appearance with their biggest-ever headlining tour of the UK and Europe.

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It has been a remarkable year for the Londoners in THE DUKE SPIRIT (www.dukespirit.com). The release of their debut disc Cuts Across The Land won them the attention of Britain’s music journos, and their relentless touring up and down that country has seen their fan base swell to club-packing proportions.

Cuts Across the Land—a dark, jagged, soaring record produced by ex-Cocteau Twin Simon Raymonde—has been called “charismatic” and “commanding” by Q. The Fly thinks they “sound like they’ve spent a fortnight in a skipful of machetes,” and the Independent raves, “theirs is a timeless, intoxicating sound.” The five piece act, fronted by singer Liela Moss, have been compared to the Velvet Underground, Jesus and Mary Chain, and PJ Harvey, but carve out a niche in the British rock landscape that is uniquely their own.

Bright Lights attendees will discover it for themselves as, after touring the UK on their own and in support of the likes of British Sea Power, Mercury Rev and Kasabian, The Duke Spirit make their not-to-be-missed Canadian debut.

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Indie rock fans were dismayed when Montréal’s Unicorns broke up after touring their 2003 breakthrough album, Who Will Cut Our Hair When We’re Gone? But Unicorns masterminds Nick Diamonds and J’aime Tambeur have returned to the stage alongside Royal City’s Jim Guthrie and Wooden Stars’ Mike Feuerstack as ISLANDS. Islands played their first official show at Pop Montréal as openers for Beck, but have already recorded their debut album, to be released on Rough Trade in early 2006.

Diamonds recently told the Montréal Mirror that his new band is more “mature”, “sombre” and “worldly” than the Unicorns, but fans of his previous work can expect from Islands the same off-kilter indie-pop brilliance that earned the Unicorns their devoted following.

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By now you’ve probably heard the buzz about Toronto’s MELIGROVE BAND (www.meligroveband.com). Their third full length, Planets Conspire, will mark V2 Records’ first release by a Canadian act when it drops in January. The disc follows on the heels of their first two critically acclaimed releases. It shows off the tightness earned through several years of feverish cross-Canada touring, including opening dates for the likes of Spoon, Dinosaur Jr., and Ted Leo. Fresh off their slot at UKULA’s showcase at The Social, where they galvanized a capacity crowd, the Meligrove Band will demonstrate to Bright Lights goers why they’re being widely tipped as Canada’s Next Big Thing.

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“If there’s one thing I’m good at, it’s assembling people from different backgrounds and making it work as a collective,” says Patrick Naud, singer for THE CALL UP (www.myspace.com/wearethecallup). After spending most of 2004 writing, Naud recorded a few of his new songs and passed some tapes around to his friends in the Montréal music scene. A number of those friends came knocking on Naud’s door, and Naud was able to assemble these disparate parts into a tight unit, transforming The Call Up from a solo studio project into a living, breathing, ass-kicking rock band.

Comprised of Naud along with Greg Paquet (ex-Stills), Ghislain Chartier and Eric Sonic (Poxy, Caféine), and George Donoso III (The Dears), the band are looking forward to introducing themselves to the Bright Lights audience, declaring, “This is new, this is Year Zero...This is: The Call Up. Can you hear it?”

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STIRLING (www.stirlingmusic.com) was formed in Edmonton in winter 2000 out of a drunken promise between lead guitarist Josh Dallmann and vocalist / guitarist / piano player Matt Booi. Taking their cue from influences such as the Jesus and Mary Chain, the Verve, the Beatles and David Bowie, they honed an epic, swirling sound built on Booi’s powerful, expressive voice and Dallmann’s reverb-and-delay-enhanced sonic adventurousness.

The band decamped for Toronto in 2002 and settled into its current four-piece lineup. A debut LP, Northern Light, was released on Popguru in summer 2004 and the band are currently in the studio recording the follow-up.

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Other acts include The Coast (www.thecoastmusic.com) + more