By Sarah Wallace

Free Saskatchewan music festival receives local donation

Aug 5, 2016 | 2:00 PM

A free rock and blues festival featuring provincial musicians in northern Saskatchewan is getting some big support.

The B.E.D.Rock Festival recently received a $2,000 donation from Melody Motors in Melfort.

Ken Madraga with Melody Motors said the company is a big fan of the band Constant Reminder who partnered with Karen Cay to create the festival three years ago.

“Luther Constant [of Constant Reminder] came in and told us what B.E.D.Rock is and how they, as a band, have made it their mission to go out and help youth and talk to people, using their music as a vehicle to do that,” Madraga said in a release.

“When he told me what is being done with B.E.D.Rock, and how the festival is taking that idea to a new level – bringing great local music to an audience for free and encouraging young musicians to play as well, we thought we wanted to be a part of that,” he added.

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Melody Motors donation will cover the quality of sound, technician and lighting the festival wanted to bring in.

All three will be provided by Diskotek Entertainment out of Shellbrook.

“For me, even though I don’t have a huge budget for the musicians, if I can at least give them amazing sound, they’re going to sound really good, they’ll look really good and they’ll make a big impression on the audience that’s there. Sound was a huge deal,” Cay said.

Now with the sound and lighting covered, Cay is focusing on the musician side of things and hopes to have more vendors come on board which will help to pay the musicians for their time and travel expenses.

“The musicians are so incredible, they’re so excited about the show and we’d like to get them paid,” Cay said.

“We have all the musicians we could possibly want and they deserve to be paid for more than just gas. Right now we have enough to cover their expenses to come to the show,” she said.

Cay is not ready to announce the band line-ups yet. She has 12 scheduled so far but said she has a waiting list of more bands wanting to take part in the festival.

Despite the list, Cay said she’ll always try to make room for young musicians if there are some who want to play on stage.

“If you’re a young musician that maybe isn’t sure you want to play or not, bring your guitar, or whatever you got, we’ll make room and time for young people on the stage. Even if it’s to go up in the middle of a set with a band, we’ll make room for any youth that wants to get up and play,” Cay said.

There will even be an hour set aside each day for young performers to take the stage.

Cay said if we don’t bring up the next generation of musicians we won’t have much in the future.

She said she knows from personal experience how important it is to have placed for young people to perform as her own son, Liam, received music lessons from Constant Reminder.

It’s from these lessons that the festival idea was created.

“The idea of B.E.D.Rock is to give those young people who have been working hard and taking lessons a venue to play at, to give them that critical stage time, to allow them to play at the same level as the professional musicians and bands. We also want to remind the public about the job and the exhilaration of live music,” Cay said.

She said if you can get a kid on stage at a young age they don’t have to overcome stage fright later on in life.

The festival also allows these kids to be able to interact with professionals on equal footing.

The B.E.D.Rock Festival takes place Aug 28 at Struthers Lake Reginal Park near Birch Hills from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m.

swallace@panow.com

On Twitter and Instagram: @sarahthesquid