Recording: L CON

Artist: L CON

Song: Try

Recorded at Sherbourne Common (Camp Wavelength – Day 2), August 20, 2017.

L CON - Try

Since 2009, the summer Wavelength festival has been a highlight of the season, slowing down the hectic "festival experience" to an Island pace and making the whole thing as much about the vibe and the location as the (always well-curated) music. When this spring's floods shut the Island down, there was a ripple of apprehension from many quarters at the loss of favourite summer hangs, culminating in the festival decamping to the mainland.

There's been a number of WL events that have taken place at spots that've been overtaken by the city's voracious development, so it was a pleasant change to be in a new space — one's that's still not fully integrated into the city and that is going to be around for a while. With a wall of almost-completed condos along the park's east side, Sherbourne Common isn't going to be hosting too many festivals in summers to come, so hopefully some of Camp Wavelength's energy will remain imprinted on the space. Meanwhile, with the water glistening in the background and a sense of isolation from the city proper, this did a really superb job of capturing the feel of a show on the Islands. (Plus there was the bonus of the awesome slapback echo bouncing back from the new buildings surrounding the park.)

On a day with a stacked bill of mellow/ambient pop, having L CON play first felt a bit like leading with the headliner, but it was an excellent mood-setter for the day. The aqueous drift of the Moon Milk songs were a perfect lakeside fit — I was well-pleased to look over during "My Aquatic Uncle" and see that the festival's resident fortune-telling mermaid had heard the music's siren call and had made her way closer to the stage, tail twitching lazily in the breeze as she reclined and Lisa Conway sang "our lives will be poetry / our lives will be bliss / in the water with your arms around me / these days on land you'll never miss". Meanwhile, there was also this new number, an indirect product of a weather-aborted WL gig earlier this year.