Inside New Friends Fest
An interview with Toronto’s staple DIY festival, unapologetically bringing aggressive emotional hardcore and screamo from around the world to the masses of Ontario youth. (By. Matt Brady)
Amid the behind-the-scenes chaos of their endless volunteer work at New Friends Fest, Max Collins was able to carve out some time in their busy schedule to see one of their favorite bands slated to play: Algae Bloom. The screamo band, hailing from Norwich, UK, had never played across the Atlantic before, and the festival was the outfit's shining moment as they energetically performed to a dark sea of some 500 or more crowd-surfing Canadian youths, softly lit by the cathedral’s sparkling chandeliers and hazy glow from red ominous lights. Collins stood and watched the entirety of the set, taking it all in. And it wasn’t until after that the tears came.
“To see them play that set and to hear the songs that I listened to with my best friend driving around in his shitty Jetta back in the day, it was otherworldly,” Collins said. “It felt like an out-of-body experience.”
New Friends Fest is the annual vitamin pill for any screamo/midwest emo enthusiast- a three-day emotional hardcore festival hosted in Toronto, Ontario, and a staple in the current circuit of DIY festivals. Since its inception in 2017, NFF has not only put on for rising acts- think Vs. Self, Knumears, Snag, Ostraca, Frail Body, Crowning- but has also hosted bigger and more legendary bands such as Jeromes Dream, Saetia, I Hate Sex, Pageninetynine, Raein and more.
The event functions as a melting pot of different cultures through the shared love of screamo and emotional hardcore, with bands traveling from all over the globe to grace the coveted stage, including bands like Joliette from Mexico City, Mexico, Blind Girls from Gold Coast, Australia, Boneflower from Madrid, Spain and Radura from Milan, Italy.
The festival this year features another diverse bill, including On The Might Of Princes, Snowing, Your Arms Are My Cocoon, Bulletsbetweentongues, State Faults, drive your plow over the bones of the dead, Senza and countless others.
“I’ve wanted to go for years at this point, but never had an opportunity to do so,” said Franky Reyes, guitarist and singer of the Florida-based emo band Bloom Dream, who is also slated to play the event this August. “Knowing that I’ll finally be able to attend and, on top of that, actually play, is extremely humbling and exciting. I can’t wait to be there and see all my friends from Toronto [and] see a bunch of amazing bands.”
Jess and I had the lucky opportunity of meeting up with three of the organizers/volunteers: Max Collins, Kai Lumbang and Jazz Cook, who were coincidentally in Chicago for the weekend of ZBR Fest. In a bustling Wicker Park around noon on a Sunday, we sat in the Stan’s Donuts under the noisy rattle of the Damen Blue Line and reflected on DIY culture.
New Friends Fest was born from the minds of Egin Kongoli, Vanessa Fever and Rohan Lilauwala, three prolific friends in the city’s DIY music scene, from currently booking shows and the festival to performing in numerous bands. With the city already having a healthy ecosystem of both hardcore and indie rock, screamo, which had a smaller representation in the past years, has not only flourished from other local bands popping up in that genre, but also from the Bat Signal that NFF puts up every year. The trio was able to successfully host a slew of festivals up until 2022, when the force of stress and burnout caught up to them. An official call for volunteers at NFF would be announced shortly after, ushering in Collins, Lumbang and Cook, among others, to help run the operation.
The monster festival is hosted at Lithuanian House, an ornate, cathedral-like banquet hall located on Toronto’s west end. The ballroom area features a sweeping open ceiling, twinkling gold chandeliers, vast wooden standing room and a hulking stage. The fest takes up two levels of the building, with the capacity of the show rounding out to about 700 people.
“This one was special to us, because we headlined and the crowd and energy was incredible. The NFF crew did such an amazing job,” said Erik Ratensperger, drummer for Jeromes Dream, through an email. “We couldn't have been more honored, and more appreciative for the opportunity to play in front of 600 or so kids at 12:30 am with unphased, full throttle energy. DIY hardcore is alive and well.”
To some musicians used to playing smaller rooms, this was a drastic change. “We first played NFF in 2022, and it was the first time we played in a venue that size, with a stage that tall, so I felt a bit out of my comfort zone in that regard,” said Erica Shultz, singer for the California-based screamo band Nuvolascura, through an email. “It also might’ve been the first time I realized people were singing along, so that was nice.”
For the Kansas City-based noise rock trio Flooding, the festival was the sole reason they made the trek over the border on their 2024 US tour. “We played in front of a lot of people; I want to guesstimate, like, 500,” said Rose Brown, singer and guitarist of the band. “It was a really, really cool festival, and I’m happy we got to play that. The Canadians are very nice and very exciting.”
For a DIY level event, the insider operation pre-festival runs like a well-oiled machine: band booking, spreadsheets, budgets, volunteer work, democratic decision making, catering, housing accommodations for traveling bands and the handling of sponsorships, which in the past included the highly regarded independent record label, Deathwish Inc.- founded by Jacob Bannon of Converge- among numerous other record stores and local screenprining shops.
While the event is a passion project for everyone involved, other obligations such as full-time jobs, relationships and other musical side-projects slip into the flow of festival work. “All of these tasks on their own aren’t crazy, but fitting that into your life really robs you of your free time,” Lumbang said. “There are so many nights where I’ve had a whole day of schoolwork [or] I have this to do and I have people to see, but I get home and I’m like, ‘Cool, it’s midnight and I’m gonna work on fest work until 4 a.m.’”
For the organizers and volunteers during the long, sweaty days of the festival, the workload is endless: hauling equipment in a U-Haul, sound-checking bands, cleaning garbage, folding T-shirts, zines and J-cards for cassettes in the merchandise area and moving gear from the upstairs stage to the downstairs (or vice-versa) all while trying to keep up with their groupchat for any other misfortune or task that presents itself. It’s a tiring and exhausting process for everyone involved, but it doesn’t take away from the overarching feeling of reward and accomplishment of putting on for their community- something that they differentiate from just a ‘scene.’
“People have scenes everywhere, but a community where people are showing up for each other in material ways outside of exchanging the same five dollars back and forth and loving riffs, we’re trying to foster that,” Lumbang said. “We want to continue that as a tradition, even as things grow or things get more formalized.”
Collins views being a part of NFF as something they were never allowed to do growing up. Coming from a part of Canada that was “extremely misogynistic, homophobic and anti-trans,” Collins was never allowed to have their own identity, their own emotions or certain interests due to the overarching culture of shame in their family. This didn’t stop them from wanting to pursue what they wanted.
“New Friends Fest is to make space for myself, and with making this space, that means that I get to make space for other people who were in my shoes when I was younger,” they said.
Growing up in a small town in Ontario, Lumbang was a kid who didn’t fit in and couldn’t find his people. It wasn’t until finding punk rock that he was able to connect with like-minded people through the community that the genre provided. Through playing in bands, going to shows and helping run NFF, he has built relationships that he wouldn’t trade for the world, and it’s become the foundation of his life.
“You have to remember that most people don’t have this or anything remotely resembling this,” he said. “You get born, you go to school, you go to work and that’s your life and that’s totally it. A lot of people don’t get to have the frameworks necessary to escape that, let alone thrive. Getting to be involved with this- booking, playing, being in bands, going to shows and just having people on your side- is really, really invaluable and should be cherished.”
You can support New Friends Fest by following their Instagram and checking out their website.
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