Moon Tan wins Indie Week

Moon Tan wins Indie Week

Cred: Wendy L Rombough, WLR Photography With Permission from: IndieCan Radio

Now in it’s 13th year Indie Week 2016 saw some 300+ bands play over 5 days in down town Toronto.      The festival boasts several elements including film, a conference and a contest that sends one band to play Indie Week Europe next year.  Dozens of shows were judged throughout the week across the city and 8 bands were chosen to compete in the finals last night at the Mod Club Theatre.

(brackets show where the band won the semi-finals)
The Corks (SAT Cameron House)
Samara York (SAT The Painted Lady)
Dick Rodan (SAT Velvet Underground)
#FamilyGrind (SAT The Bovine)
Fade Awaays (SAT The Drake)
Them&Us (Sat Nocturne) – 3rd PLACE
MunizO (Sat Cherry Cola’s) – 2nd PLACE
Moon Tan (SAT Mod Club) – WINNER

The was also a performance from WUZI (UK) – Indie Week Europe WINNERS

“Originally We didn’t even know if we were gonna make it out.  We just finished a small tour a whole month in October from Quebec City to Vancouver Island and everything in between and we weren’t sure if we could afford it being self funded and all.  But you never know what can happen so we went for it.”  Said drummer Nick Kula over the phone.   “We’ve never played Europe before.  That’ll be cool and an excuse to do something more in Europe hopefully.”

Described by The Scene as “Rush on Steroids”  Moon Tan started in 2012 as a cover band in the Winnipeg area.

“We started as a cover band just to make money and play for a laugh.  We’ve been covering Rush in our live shows for the last few years.  We are all big Rush fans, all of those guys are heroes for us.” Said Kula.

Winning Indie Week 2016 seems like another rung in the ladder for Moon Tan who have slowly been building up their contacts and fan base under the guidance of veteran studio engineer Ron Obvious Vermeulen since their self titled EP in 2013.   Obvious’s credits include building studios for Bryan Adams “The Warehouse Studio”, Jim Vallance “Armoury Studios”, k.d lang (private), Bob Rock (private), Colin James (private) Bob Buckley (private), and Mutt Lange (private).

Bands were judged on the following criteria:
Image, Stage Presence, Performance, Songwriting, Crowd Reaction, Professionalism, The IT Factor (Ready for the next level or not) .

Scores were marked out of 5 and grand totals tallied from all of the judges out of 35 possible marks were compared.

Take a listen to Moon Tan and see if you agree with the judges:

More MOON TAN
More INDIE WEEK

THE SCENE