Interview: No Passage Fest marks Ontario's big return

Living in Ontario for the last two years has been a dissonant experience. While the rest of the world got the show back on the road and settled into their “new normal”, we’ve been sitting in relative silence awaiting better days. But while we were waiting, industry multi-hyphenate Joe Day was plotting. What started out as an idea last summer for a festival around his birthday — one final hoorah before moving on to new career paths outside of music — turned into No Passage Fest, the hardcore/pop punk fest with the best timing you could imagine.

With Ontario finally fully reopening within the last few weeks, it was down to the wire on how things would go… but the way they’ve turned out feels clandestine. Lining up to be Like Pacific’s album release show (three months after release), one of the first events at Hamilton’s new Bridgeworks venue, and one of the first festivals most Ontarians will have attended since pre-COVID, March 19th may just be too big of a “final hoorah” for Joe to take that step away from the scene he loves so much.

We had a chance to chat with Joe about No Passage Fest and his own journey with this scene. Check it out below and do not delay on grabbing your fest tickets — they’re almost gone.

No Passage Fest is a special one-off event celebrating local music, and featuring 12 amazing artists across the punk and hardcore scene — acts from all over Ontario as well as some special U.S. guests: