What’s up: 5 things to do this week

What’s up: 5 things to do this week

Frostbyte @ Raw:Almond

Sunday, 5-11 p.m.
Raw: Almond structure, The Forks Market
Tickets from $99, memetic.ca

If you like your collaborative, river-based dining experience served up with a side of electronic music and dazzling visuals, the folks at Memetic and Raw:Almond have got you covered.

The local proponents of digital creativity have teamed up with the wildly popular winter pop-up eatery for a night that’s sure to be an immersive feast for the senses.

Frostbyte @ Raw:Almond will feature an electronic music showcase including Nathan Zahn, Kasm, JR, Joe Silva and Marco Roberto, as well as projection-mapped custom visuals by Jabez Lee. The evening will also include hors d’oeuvres from the Raw:Almond kitchen and craft cocktails from Patent 5 Distillery.

Tickets are $99 plus taxes/fees for Frostbyte @ Raw:Almond, or $149 plus taxes/fees for a ticket which includes entry into the March 22 World Water Day forum at the Manitoba Museum, with proceeds also supporting the World Water Day youth conference.

For more information and to buy tickets, visit memetic.ca.

— Ben Sigurdson

Hayden

Tuesday, 8 p.m.
Park Theatre, 698 Osborne St.
Tickets $40 plus fees at winnipegfolkfestival.ca

Back in the ’90s, when he emerged on to the indie scene with his 1995 debut, Everything I Long For, Ontario singer-songwriter Hayden had a grizzled, grunge-adjacent vocal style that lent extra gravitas to his sensitive, strummy material.

Over the years and over the course of eight albums, his hair has turned silver and his vocals have grown more burnished, but they remain an unmistakable instrument on such songs as Bad as They Seem, Dynamite Walls and Hollywood Ending.

Though he’s shied away from the spotlight and maintained an almost absurdly low profile in the years since his much-ballyhooed signing to Outpost — a subsidiary of Geffen Records — after a heated bidding war, he’s slowly but steadily released new material.

Hayden, who turns 52 on Feb. 12, brings his solo tour to the Park Theatre on Tuesday, in a show presented by the Winnipeg Folk Festival. The tour comes in advance of his ninth album, expected soon; listen to the lovely, piano-backed first single, East Coast:

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— Jill Wilson

Lights brings PEP to Winnipeg

Tuesday, 8 p.m.
Burton Cummings Theatre
Tickets $35-45 plus fees at Ticketmaster

Lights is a multi-hyphenate master of multimedia.

The sugar-voiced Canadian electropop singer/songwriter/comic-book artist doesn’t just make music — she builds whole interconnected worlds. When she dropped her fifth full-length album, the aptly titled PEP, in 2022, it was accompanied by a 16-page mini-comic — itself a side story to her six-part graphic-novel series, Skin and Earth, which inspired her 2017 album of the same name.

“If you’re a fan of Lights, you get more than just music,” Lights told the Toronto Star last year. “That’s just what I do because I have so much more to offer. And again, if you only like to listen to the music, that’s there. But I like to appeal to that side of fans who really enjoy digging in and just escaping.”

Lights, born Valerie Poxleitner in Timmins, Ont., came up via MySpace in the mid-2000s and, by 2009, won Juno Award for Best New Artist on the strength of her debut single, Drive My Soul.

Lights will be joined at the Burt by Toronto drag queen Tynomi Banks, who competed on the first season of Canada’s Drag Race. Tickets are available at Ticketmaster.ca.

— Jen Zoratti

City acts pay tribute to Joe Strummer and the Clash

Friday, 8 p.m.
Park Theatre
Tickets: $19.51, including fees, at myparktheatre.com

The music of Joe Strummer and the Clash will live on through the performances of four local groups Friday night at the Park Theatre.

Two bands taking their names from Clash songs, the Guns of Wolseley and the Crackdown, are on the bill, as well as the Mariachi Ghost and Death Cassette.

Strummer was the Clash’s lead vocalist from 1976-86, when the English punk-rockers were described as “the only band that matters,” owing to albums such as London Calling and Sandinista! The group broke up in 1986 and Strummer went on to lead Strummer and the Mescaleros until his death in December 2002. He was 50 years old.

The gig marks International Clash Day, which began in 2013 and this year falls on Feb. 7, but Strummer’s fans in Winnipeg banded together for a tribute show 20 years ago, just a month after the singer died of a heart attack caused by a congenital heart defect.

— Alan Small

Pile on the poutine

To Feb.14
Various locations
Visit lapoutineweek.com for more information

The starch is here to stay. Food festival season continues in February with La Poutine Week. The 14-day event celebrating curds, gravy and French fries kicked off Wednesday on the heels of Peak of the Market’s Potato Week.

La Poutine Week is an offshoot of the original Le Burger Week festival. Now in its 11th year, the event expanded from one to two weeks amid the pandemic. There are more than 900 restaurants participating across the country this year, 150 of which are located in Winnipeg.

Features include a Filipino beef caldereta poutine from Tito Boy Restaurant ($17.50), a vegan latke and chick’n poutine from Bernstein’s Deli ($14), a “poutinezza” pizza from Diana’s Cucina and Lounge ($23.50), a cheesesteak poutine from Wayback Burgers ($13) and a lobster breakfast poutine from Lobster Bae, which operates out of the Good Will Social Club ($28).

Diners are encouraged to vote for their favourite dishes online.

— Eva Wasney

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