Very Much Alive for 125 | 10th July 2011 | 23:46 PDT

Relaxed, chilled, "at one" as I'm sitting in Stanley Park surrounded within a clearing of trees, sitting on an old makeshift picnic blanket, with a cold drink in hand, the sunshine warming up my back giving light to whatever is playing out in front of me, sharing this scene with a few thousand people, talking to fellow revellers in a make-shift constantly shifting and changing community as people migrate with the flow of needs and wants that they require throughout the day.

Nice of the whole of Canada to come and enjoy this celelbration

This is the Summer Live festival in aid to celebrate Vancouver and its 125th birthday. First thing you notice how organised and smoothly this has all come together with volunteers more than pleased to help people. Walking around the stalls selling a variety of foods that reflect this city's diversity, merchandise tables of local businesses, sporting events, kids areas and seeing families play with their kids and groups of people merge together to share the main pull of this festival, the music of local Vancouverites.

Split into two main stages, the Main Stage for families and pleasant people and the Trail's Edge for the low-life degenerates of Vancouver, the 22-32 year old category, that like to do awful things like listen to Indie and drink beer, makes me sick to the core, how disgusting and vile these "yooofs" are, so I joined them and this is where I resided for the afternoon.

tiny people, BIG screen

Due to the burden of procrastination and it's addictive nature, I only manage to see the final song of the energetic folk indie band The Belle Game, but that got me pumped enough and wet at the mouth wanting more, damn you self-inflicted laziness!

Next up was Dustin Bentall Outfit, a modern replicated Johnny Cash twisted blend of the wild west, being an assortment of musicians from different bands - seemed like everyone had their go at the spot light and there was a great ambience as this guys went on to do their thing.

We Are City took the reins of this stage to produce some incredible progressive rock, warming to the crowd instantly with their going-nowhere stories and overwhelmed nature of the event, perhaps also having a new band member and only knowing a handful of songs, probably contributed to the nervous energy, but once they found their stride and got into the zone, the music was a raw deep, soothing, powerful eclectic mix of styles.

Band playing. Crowd Dancing. Cameraman recording

Final headlining act came from Indie Pop band, Hey Ocean! Who hadn't played Vancouver in over a year, drew the biggest crowd and with their positive presence, happy attitude treating the stage as somewhere to play and not somewhere to wok and promote, those vibes accelerated 10-fold to the audience and it got everybody moving on their feet and sporting a big broad smile. They were a perfect upbeat end to an amazing day.

More please Vancouver.

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