A beautiful, warm summer night in August, the sun is setting, the stage is up, people are buzzing all around. Guitars squealing, drums pounding, bass rattling chests and vocals blaring in your ears.

This was the experience you had if you were in Woodstock Ontario, Canada on Friday August 16th 2013. Cowapolooza is a festival that Woodstock puts on every year, full of music, vendors of all sorts, buskers, and small rides for the kids. Held in South Side Park, hundreds of people gather to experience this two day event, and as you can guess, the bands are what drive me to attend each year. In the past we've had acts such as: April Wine, The Stampeders, Thunderstruck ( Canada's best AC/DC cover band), and The Beagles ( A Beatles cover band ). This year Thunderstruck came back to join us and rock out the best AC/DC covers I've ever heard... a band that definitely doesn't disappoint and leaves you wanting more, as well as the band After The Lounge, London Ontario's favourite rock band with an original sound that grabs you hard and blows you away.

I suggest you check out both of these bands and get to a show near you to get the full experience.

AFTER THE LOUNGE: http://www.afterthelounge.com

THUNDERSTRUCK: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Thunderstruck/16277603667

Facebook was the only webpage I could find on these guys but they're from Toronto and just blew me away with their covers... they are dead on and have an amazing stage presence.

this blog Pt. 1 ... are the images of AFTER THE LOUNGE.
i'm still editing Thunderstrucks images, but they will be posted ASAP.

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© Kevin Vyse Photography All rights reserved 2013 — © Kevin Vyse Photography
All rights reserved 2013

Yesterday, July 1st, was Canada's 146th birthday, and with every birthday us Canucks throw a big party for our Country! My little hometown has a pretty nice park where the celebration takes place every year. I went down to see what kinds of things were going on, there were: Softball games going on, fire trucks for the kids to go in/on, talent shows, live music, and some kiddy rides. Normally I'd spend some time down there and photograph some of the events, but this year I showed up at the wrong time and everything was in between acts or games so there wasn't much to shoot.

At night. 9:45pm to be exact, the fire works display started. I was a little worried we wern't going to get to see them this year because at 9:00pm it was pouring rain, but mother nature was nice and stopped the rain just in time for the fire works to take place. Every year I head up to the same hill and get the same pictures of the fire works, so this year I wanted to change it up and find a new location with a little more in the image than just the fire works. I left early and went up to the highest point in the town but the road was closed for construction so that wrecked those plans. Instead I decided to head up to another high point where I could get some houses in the foreground.. my initial thought was to get up so high I could have all the city lights in the foreground, but this would have to do. In some of the images you can see some kids running around with sparklers, which just look like long streaks of light because of the long shutter speeds required to capture the fireworks. There are also a few pictures where you can see some people standing down in the bottom of the photograph in silhouette lit by the light from the houses.

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Cowapolooza Festival: THE MUSIC Pt.1

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