Yesterday, Propagandhi singer/guitarist Chris Hannah posted his impressions of their experience with Best Friends Day 9 this past weekend, and had a lot of nice things to say about the festival, and Richmond in general. A relevant excerpt:
These people really know how to throw a party and a great music event. i especially appreciate that they did it all without laming it up with a bunch of goofy corporate sponsors.
Music and commerce are certainly tangled together in our world, but the tendency of most festivals to make musicians defacto indentured-servants of corporate hyper-consumerism bums us out. So it’s a pretty awesome statement that the organizers of BFD make when they choose to work their magic with a spirit of independence, relying on their own resourcefulness and grassroots community connections rather than some easy and crass corporate dollars. Cheers to Tony and the rest of organizers/ volunteers for that!
It had never even occurred to me before, but Chris is totally right--by now, Best Friends Day could be saturated with advertisements, as so many other music festivals are. We are lucky not to have those kinds of things shoved down our throats every year. It's just another reason to appreciate the great work of the Best Friends Day organizers.
Read the rest of what Chris had to say at Propagandhi's website, here.