I am so excited that its making my stomach hurt...

...and I still have 94 sleeps until Hillside!

Hillside Festival that is. I always feel like there shouldn't be a capital letter... so hillside. yep.

Though I attended once before, last summer was the first year I volunteered at Guelph's hillside festival and had the whole full-weekend/camping-in-volunteer-village/seeing-a-bajillion-shows/doin'-it-the-hillside-way experience. I loved it. Seriously super-loved it. It only took me about fifteen minutes before I declared "I am doing this again next year and every year forever!" or something to that effect...

I adored every minute of the weekend despite only having pre-hillside heard of about six of the bands (and missing two of them cuz we had to leave to go to a wedding!). We discovered countless new bands to swoon over (including the incredible Graveyard Train) and spent hours sitting on the lawn, tent-hopping, swimming and wandering the food and merch tents... it was fab.

So this year, when the hillside lineup for 2012 got announced and three separate people sent me "Holy crap have you seen the hillside line-up!?!" messages I was understandably anxious to check out the list of performers.

Holy Crap is right.

ALX, Arkells, Rich Aucoin, BADBADNOTGOOD, Bahamas, The Be Good Tanyas, Belle Starr, Geoff Berner, Birds of Chicago, Bidiniband, Bombay Bicycle Club, The Bright Light Social Hour, Bry Webb And The Providers, Chic Gamine, Adam Cohen, Cold Specks, The Crooked Brothers, Current Swell, The Deep Dark Woods, Doldrums, Dirty Mags, The Durants, Kathleen Edwards, Elephant Revival, Elliott BROOD, Esther Grey, Christine Fellows, Great Lake Swimmers, Alanna Gurr, Imaginary Cities, The Jezabels, Joel Plaskett Emergency, Keys N Krates, The Magnificent 7s, Maylee Todd, Memoryhouse, Mickey Hart Band, Minor Empire, New Country Rehab, Ohbijou, Open Hearts Society, Sandro Perri, (POP Montreal Presents: Canailles, Jennifer Castle, Mike O'Brien + Michelle Tompkins), Joe Pug, Rival Boys, Lucy Wainwright Roche, Selina Martin Triplets, Sagapool, The Slackadeliqs, StereoKid, The Strumbellas, Tālavya, Sidi Touré, Chad VanGaalen, Valdy, Walk Off The Earth, The Wooden Sky, Young Empires, Zeus.

yeah... Excited.

I am excited about Zeus (first time I will have seen them not as an opening band) 
I am excited about Ohbijou (so beautiful!)
I am excited about The Wooden Sky (perfect hillside fare!)
I am excited about Great Lake Swimmers and Current Swell and the Arkells


But more than all that put together I am excited about Elliott BROOD. 


Since moving back to Ontario a little over a year ago, I've seen them four times (more than in the previous four years all put together!) and its done nothing but make my love of them even more acute. Seriously, if I could only listen to one band for the rest of my life, I would be sad, but I would at least be mostly okay with it as long as that band were Elliot Brood. And EB live? even better.


Obviously I am excited to see them perform. And I am particularly excited to see them perform at hillside (because hillside performances are always magically even better than the best non-hillside performances). But more than that I am super excited to possibly see them two or three times in as many days (workshops! tents! mainstage!). That last realisation just hit me today, telling my roomate about it while doing dishes. And I had a weird experience, a tv/book/imaginary-world type experience: I suddenly got so excited that I felt momentarily nauseous. Seriously. It was weird. but also awesome. 


I realize I have just irrevocably confirmed my status as an absolutely huge live-music dork, but honestly, if you haven't figured that out by now.... just wait until my hillside posts start rolling in...!


Only 94 sleeps until hillside!