The UPFront Festival, which was held at Toronto’s Berczy Park (and the neighbouring Scott Street) the entire August 15-17, 2025 weekend, is a free outdoor festival featuring Indigenous arts, music, and culture. Berczy Park was once where the original shoreline of Lake Ontario met the land, and now has the famous and beautiful multi-breed dog sculptures fountain.
My plan was to arrive early that warm Sunday evening to get a good spot in front of the stage, because three-time Juno award winner, Susan Aglukark, was performing that evening. But my plan did not go according to schedule: I had mistakenly arrived two hours too early. Aimlessly, I wandered about the venue, admiring the vendor tables and stalls, appreciating the crowd gathering. I stopped my meandering in front of the Berczy Park Stage when I noticed two musicians were beginning to set up their equipment. This might be a pleasant place to spend some time…
And I was so very lucky to discover that I was really enjoying the music being played over the next hour. After flying in from Alberta the night before, Edmonton-based Metis singer-songwriter Kaeley Jade, with her fellow band-mate Gabriel Gagnon, played songs from their repertoire and from their 2022 album Turpentine. The two musicians started their set quietly, with a drum machine attempting to substitute for a real drum kit. She sang some of her more popular songs, such as “Poltergeist”, which the audience appreciated. However, the song versions played that evening did not have the full band accompanying Kaeley Jade. And while I enjoyed the minimalist version, listening to the CD recorded versions at home that night, I appreciated the full band version much more. But the live music was just as honest and more direct than the original versions, with the vibrant lyrics being supported by only the guitars and keyboard notes.
I also discovered later that Kaeley Jade was just finishing her 2025 summer tour, having played in over 20 cities in the Western part of Canada, and where she was accompanied most of the time by the full band. She has previously self-described her musical style as “somewhere at the intersection of indie, folk, and pop, in that [she] likes to bridge the storytelling of alternative and folk music with the accessibility of pop music” (quoted from an exclusive interview that Gabe Finch wrote for the Illustrate Magazine, published on October 12, 2022).
After a few songs, the audience was warming up to the sensitive and sensible lyrics, and Kaeley Jade’s enthusiastic singing really started to lift off. She put aside the keyboard and put away her guitar, and at her very best, she started singing freely into the microphone.
If you want to sample her music, you can find her on the major streaming platforms.
To see and hear an excellent concert, Kaeley Jade (with her band!) can be viewed on Youtube, when an episode of CBC Music Live was recorded at Toronto’s TD Music Hall, as part of the 2024 Tkaronto Music Festival on November 8, 2024.
Her website is: https://kaeleyjade.com
