Day 2 of Laketown Shakedown 2023 kicked of on the Flats Stage just outside the main venue at Laketown Ranch with a couple Cowichan Valley locals.
First Nations rapper Xavier Francis brought some positive hip hop to a modest but receptive crowd in his opening set. He even brought some friends on stage to perform.
Lost Octave rocked out next on a stage they last performed at Laketown Shakedown 2019.
Victoria DJ Jennay Badger opened up the afternoon sets at the Lakenight stage with dancers twirling silks and a hoola hoop.
The Quw’utsun’ Tzinquaw Dancers opened up the main stage with traditional First Nations dances
Victoria’s Blase Blase had a late start due to an issue with an amp, but they jammed for a bit while techs fixed the problem before jumping into their funky set.
Victoria’s Pastel Blank were the first band to take to the Laketown Shakedown main stage Saturday and got festival goers, who were trickling into the venue, dancing. Lead singer Angus Watt and a couple of his bandmates would later fly down the venue’s zipline after their set.
Nanaimo’s DJ All Good and Victoria’s The Gaff performed the other DJ sets at the Lakenight stage in the late afternoon/early evening.
Montreal’s Busty and The Bass added some elctro-soul and hip hop at dinner hour on the main stage.
Earlier in the day it was announced that set times for K’naan and Yukon Blonde were swapped with K’naan starting at 7:30 and Yukon Blonde moving to the 9pm spot. K’naan performed a number of songs in his catalogue that fans in attendance sang along loudly to and he hinted at a new album coming out in September after not performing or recording much for a few years.
Vancouver/Kelowna’s Yukon Blonde performed a fun set that had the audience at the front dancing all set.
The [email protected]’s DJ Boitano has been spinning tunes all weekend as the house DJ between sets on the main stage. Before the headers, Afternoon Zone host Pol Plastino was seen on the platform with Boitano as they started playing Phil Collins’ ‘In The Air Tonight’.
A First Nations representative introduced headliners Portugal. The Man. The Grammy award winning band performed a nearly a 1.5 hour power set that had very little breaks between songs. I think they took a moment to speak to the audience about three times after a song. The show was clearly about the music and not the group as the stage had almost no front lighting and fog machines were essentially on full blast at times hiding some band members in thick white fog. Like many performers at the festival who have never been to Vancouver Island they made a point to note how beautiful the area is.
Reve performed a late night set just before midnight at the Lakenight stage. The three-time 2023 Juno Award winner from Montreal showed why she’s a rising pop star. She was yet another artist that pointed out the beauty of their Lake Cowichan region.
