Canela Party 2026: Day 3 - Noise, Joy, and No Sleep
By Harry Meenagh
After the undeniable calibre of artists and bands showcased on day two of the alternative music festival, Canela Party, the third and final day became, as always (and in the best way possible), an undeniable fight for survival and a test of physical and mental endurance. Beers have been necked, ankles bruised to the point of slight concern, our livers are crying for sweet mercy, and the collective headspace lingers between justifiable concern for our physical health and excitement over the musical offerings still to come. Thankfully, after shotgunning our third beer in the pre-drinks leading up to the event, all reasonable health worries left the room. From the commanding lineup composing day three of Canela Party, we thought Nation of Language, Deafheaven, and Chalk deserved a worthy write-up in this Canela Party review.
In between necessary beer imbibement and the general astoundment at the costumes offered up by other festival-goers, we positioned stage-right, where Nation of Language quickly cemented themselves as the surprise wonder of Day Three – perhaps the entire festival. Outclassing our group’s meagre costume offerings in (I shit you not) full wizard get-up, they proceeded to catapult the audience stratospheric with an inimitable fusion of electronic and post-punk soundscapes.
Their performance cannot be understated – a healing balm for the festival crowd now hazy and weary on the hangover and comedown, a sprawling synth-swirl of musical prowess. Crowd favorites 'Weak In Your Light' and 'The Wall & I' engaged onlookers in a collective sway and shuffle, creating a kind of joined understanding that the performance was already evoking the magic fitting for their appearance. Coupled with an evening now turned night and regular closer 'Across That Fine Line', you have an act that conjured, in equal measure, joy at the musical showcase on offer, and a bittersweet melancholy in that it would mark the waning hours of the festival. Without a doubt, they captured the essence and message of Canela Party – a celebration of music at its most joyous and wondrous.
I always ensure there's a band I refuse to listen to in the lead-up to Canela Party so that the element of surprise sticks around to dutifully smack me around the place. This year, it was Bay Area born Deafheaven. I may have come to regret this one.
Not least because, as their name should have warned, I was floored by the amount of decibel range my ears could handle, and because their performance was a textbook example of being transported somewhere entirely different. They are a loud, LOUD band, yet with a mastery of quiet and loud dynamics I've not yet seen in a band situated well within the "metal" genre. Watching them on stage, jaw swinging around aimlessly in amazement (and not for the reason you might think), I was reminded of the now mythic consensus surrounding My Bloody Valentine and their ability to transport listeners into a dream-state by virtue of distortion and pure drone. Deafheaven have all this, except these guys actually move around. Vocalist George Clarke is a machine mainlining jet-fuel, marching and twisting with military madness as he proceeds to shred his larynx with soaring screech and howl to the double-kick-drum thud and brick wall guitar that compose the band's unrelenting sound. It is unadulterated shoegaze welded with the concrete fury of modern metal, and my only wish while watching was that I'd broken my element-of-surprise rule for this band.
Closing off this review was the act our group - now heavy with the other festival-goers on a shameful cocktail of booze and willpower - were well acquainted with: Chalk. This was precisely what we needed at 3:30 in the morning – an exercise in furious genre-fluid dance-punk, industrial pop, and alternative rock. By the time frontman Ross Cullen, topless and animated with frantic intensity, marched on stage with the rest of the band in tow, they proceeded to squeeze and wring the last remnants of dopamine out of the crowd like the heaving sweat rags we were. A stellar performance followed, moving from the swirling dance punk offered up by leading tracks 'Pain' and 'Longer', to the feral industrial noise of 'Tongue'. 'Beal Feirste' moved the performance into undeniable and raucous dance pulse in the worthy heritage of 'Born Slippy', though this comparison shouldn't detract from what was, on its own merits, an undeniable cascade of synth-swagger Chalk have perfected in their own right. Personal track favorite 'Get Fucked' moved the closing moments of the set into an uncompromising crescendo of sweaty bodies now writhing in joined unison. And I simply had to applaud the track's ability to remind me, and probably everyone else, of the state we found ourselves in by the time the chorus kicked us into hyperspace. Get Fucked? Say no more Chalk... say no more.