BY: FRANK BUCHOLTZ, BLACK PRESS
A free music festival at Centennial Park will help wrap up the month of August.
The MNET Radio Music Festival is scheduled to run Aug. 27 from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. at the park in central Mission, located at 14th and Taulbut.
The event will be about more than music – several food trucks will also be on hand, and there will be lots to do.
Almost all of the musicians who will appear have ties to Mission. Some are current residents and some formerly lived in Mission. All are excited about playing on a larger stage in an outdoor venue.
Lance Schilka, executive producer of MNET Media, says some have played at outdoor events before and, for some, it will be a new experience
“They all deserve to be here,” he said.
Schilka founded MNET Media last year with a focus on developing local talent and giving Mission, “the Big Mish” as he calls it, a broadcast medium that did not exist before.
MNET Radio offers local musicians a chance to be on the air via the internet, while MNET TV posts videos on YouTube. A social club via Facebook gives artists a chance to reach potential new fans.
The District of Mission has worked with MNET to make the park available as a venue for the event.
Schilka says that it will be the first outdoor concert of its type at the park. He says the park is in a nice setting and is in a central location.
The event will be preceded by a pancake breakfast, starting at 9 a.m. This is being put on by the Elks Club. At 11 a.m., the music will begin.
The artists, in order of appearance, are: Sain Arden, opera-style rock band; Corey Primus, folk/rock and roots Canadiana; Midnight Lion, modern pop rock; Hastings, funk blues rock, with great saxophone; Jeff Lacey and the Blackbirds band, an inspirationally driven pop rock group; KicnRox, a straight-ahead Mission rock band which has just released its first album; The Harvest, a blues rock group fronted by vocal sensation Shauna Laine Meloche; and The John Welsh Band, FVMA pop artist of the year.The band offers a good times folkrock-pop sound that gets everyone dancing.
Schilka and the district are working on parking and traffic arrangements, but he emphasized that organizers want everyone to remember “that this event is in a public park so please respect your neighbours and other patrons so we may all have the best possible musical experience.”