Co-founded by three New York music industry vets and longtime friends, Lorimer Beacon‘s founder and head Mike Bell, Kanine Records‘ founder and label head Lio Kanine and Kepler Events‘ and Dedstrange Records co-founder Steven Matrick, The New Colossus Festival over the course of the past couple of years have featured a few hundred handpicked, emerging indie bands and artists from across Canada, the UK, the European Union, Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong and the States.
By design the festival normally takes place about a week or so before SXSW. The festival’s co-founders have long viewed New Colossus as a pre-SXSW stopover that will give its lineups an opportunity to organically gain exposure, while filling a critical void in the city’s festival circuit.
Obviously, because of the COVID-19 pandemic, New Colossus wasn’t able to happen as scheduled last year, but New Colossus and 18th Ward Brewing hosted a live, outdoor concert series featuring local and regional acts at the brewery’s Bushwick location.
New Colossus happened as scheduled — and I saw a lot of great acts, met a lot of great folks and had a great time. (More on that later, because I’m so incredibly behind on my photo editing. The life of a photographer, right?) The Summer Sunday series has gone on to its second summer. Unfortunately, I haven’t been to every single show because of travel and the New York Rangers making a deep postseason run. But I’ve gone when I’ve can and have seen an interesting array of local, regional and in one or two cases international acts.
Back in July, New Colossus Festival and 18th Ward Brewing hosted a Summer Sunday showcase that featured Arverne, Early Riser, Leathered, and Drive-In. There was an opener that I missed, thanks to the Q59 being wildly inconsistent. Such is life.
Photos from the show are below.
Arverne
Early Riser
Leathered
Drive-In
