Annual waterfront festival headlined by Rush, AC/DC, Led Zeppelin tribute bands

Attendees have been enjoying their favourite tribute bands free of charge at this weekend's Barrie Waterfront Festival.

Centennial Park has been the site of this weekend’s Barrie Waterfront Festival, where attendees are enjoying their favourite tribute bands free of charge.

The annual event is considered the kickoff to Barrie’s summer festival season, with this year’s edition featuring eleven bands and more than four-dozen food vendors.

“It brings tens of thousands of dollars and tens of thousands of people into the local downtown area, and it does great for all the hotels and restaurants,” said Lido Chilelli, festival organizer. “It’s the Christmas in spring here in [Simcoe County].”

After ‘Boneyard’ and ‘The Bomb’ opened the festival Friday evening, ‘Philcos’ and ‘Madhaus’ led things off Saturday afternoon.

“Bands after Covid were struggling just like restaurants. We weren’t allowed to play,” said JR, ‘Madhaus’ frontman and lead singer, of the importance of music festivals. “Everybody started coming out again and supporting live music, and it’s important.”

“The live music scene has to be supported,” added Jeff Kahl, lead singer for Bootleg Creedence, a CCR tribute band. “We have to support not only local, but Canadian in general.”

Saturday’s lineup continued with ‘Pearl Jamming,’ a ‘Pearl Jam’ tribute band and ‘Zepology,’ a ‘Led Zeppelin’ tribute band.

Sunday’s lineup features ‘Overture’ and ‘AC/DC Canada,’ tribute bands for ‘Rush’ and ‘AC/DC’ respectively.