We recently took our powerviolence/hardcore band VERIFY on an 11 day tour of Atlantic Canada. What follows is both a traditional tour diary, but also a tour guide, hopefully something that will empower and encourage other bands to visit this frequently overlooked and underrated part of the world.

Atlantic Canada covers the provinces of New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island (PEI), Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland/Labrador (one province including the island of Newfoundland and the mainland region of Labrador). If you've heard about "the Maritimes," that's everything in Atlantic Canada not including Newfoundland and Labrador.

We live in Montreal, so this region is at our doorstep. Punks from Atlantic Canada regularly visit Montreal to play or attend shows and fests, as it's their closest "big city," but it's rarer for Montreal punks to return the favour and travel east. It's rarer still for bands who are touring through Montreal and Toronto include Atlantic Canada on their route. Getting out there is a "long drive"—to Fredericton, it's an 8 hour drive from Montreal, or a 6.5 hour drive from Boston—but once that's done, everywhere else in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and PEI is 2-4 hours apart. One long drive to get to a concentrated region of thriving punk scenes nestled among beautiful coastal landscapes shouldn't be a deterrent to any but the laziest punks.

Atlantic Canada punk has a long and storied history. Check out the still-active Atlantic Punk blogspot which digs into the history of the region with interviews and discographies. That history has built many strong punk scenes today, regularly repopulated with youth hungry for any new bands who come from away. These kids will go out of their way to support your band, buy your merch, make sure your gas, bridge tolls, and ferry tickets are paid for and just generally make you feel welcome. We've never heard of a decent hardcore/punk band having a bad time or losing money on an Atlantic Canada tour leg.

Fredericton, New Brunswick

New Brunswick is the gateway to the rest of Atlantic Canada. From Montreal you have to drive through 8 hours of Quebec/New Brunswick highway before you get to the first city of note (Fredericton).

There are several small cities in New Brunswick. Fredericton and Moncton are both along the Trans-Canada Highway and Saint John is off the highway down towards the Bay of Fundy. Don't confuse Saint John, New Brunswick with Saint John's, Newfoundland!

All these cities have a rock or show bar and you might have luck getting a bar show but probably only on a Friday/Saturday/maybe Sunday. All-ages shows in Atlantic Canada are much better and more fun than bar shows, but the difficulty is the same in getting a show booked on a weeknight. At present, Fredericton seems to have the most active scene in New Brunswick. Seger and Sienna from GAZM moved back there and settled in at the start of the pandemic, and we think a lot of the current scene's health is due to their influence.

Fredericton is the only place on this tour we had played previously and the large and enthusiastic all ages turnout at the Odell lodge mirrored our last gig there in 2023. Our version of the perfect show (three band show, over by 9PM) opened with a playful and interactive harsh noise set by MILKWEED, followed by a new death-metal-y band WAYWARD CORPSE, fronted by our friend Seger. Our set was a bit rough around the edges—it was the first show of tour, and also Taylor's first show playing guitar in VERIFY (a last minute line-up change due to our guitarist Jay having a family emergency). We got our only big technical hangup of tour out of the way early, the supportive crowd waiting patiently while Taylor hunted down the bad cable in her pedal chain and tucked it away for the rest of tour. Once we finally started, the energy was through the roof and people danced super hard. A really encouraging start to the tour!

Since it was still pretty early, we went to the house and got some good quality kitchen hangs with Seger and Sienna, plus a few acquaintances we remembered from our last trip to town. We talked about the local struggles kids are facing to start bands or book shows, and there seems to be a bit of a bottleneck around places for new bands to practice. Despite this, it was encouraging that Jackson, a local younger, long-haired shredder who had opened for us in 2023 with a solo project was now starting full bands and taking on booking shows. We hope the next time we play Fredericton there's a crop of new bands to share the stage with!

Charlottetown, PEI

PEI (Prince Edward Island) is a small island off the north coast of Nova Scotia. A lot of the world's potatoes come from this island, which is about the size of Delaware or Palestine. It used to be more isolated, but in the 90s they built a 13 km/8 mile bridge (the longest in Canada), making it much more accessible. There is a $50 toll to leave the island on the bridge, but we've never heard of a band not covering that easily with a show there.

Crossing that famous bridge onto island #1 of tour and taking in the martian-esque red dirt landscapes, we rolled into Charlottetown and immediately spotted posters for our show that night, always a great sign! Being a small island, the punk scene is concentrated in Charlottetown, the largest city. The drive from Fredericton was short, so we had time to avail ourselves of the island's offerings in the hours before load-in: first hitting up Splendid Essence, a veg buddhist spot and probably my favourite food of the whole trip, and then a quick drive to one of the island's famously nice sandy beaches, complete with dunes and a charming lighthouse.

The show itself was at the PEI Farm Centre, a building with a big multipurpose room and offices for a bunch of agricultural organizations.

Our friends and PEI veterans CELL DETH opened – they're one of the best current Canadian hardcore punk bands, it was a huge tour highlight to be able to share the stage with them. We were also excited to learn that they were recording the morning after we left, so keep an ear out for that! CELL DETH's drummer Brett is one half of Secret Beach with his partner Sophia, and they ran the show like fucking pros. They even had little name tags where people could write their name and what instruments they play, so attendees could mingle and find others to start new bands with.

The rest of the show was a classic mixed bill and we loved every second of it. Teenage rippers KRATOM were on second, followed by heavy hardcore band CUT DEEP and the wildcard GIRLS NIGHT who had a saxophone and synth basslines and almost-rapping vocals. Luckily we played pretty well, because videos from this show followed us around the rest of tour: "I saw clips from your show in PEI the other night, it looked insane!" greeted us everywhere we went afterward. We sense that the scene in PEI is on the upswing, and it's clear that the Secret Beach crew and others are really putting in a lot of work to make it happen. The show was packed, other bands were releasing their tapes or abuzz about upcoming recordings or future shows they were playing. It was Taylor's first visit and she was totally charmed by PEI and got just enough of a taste that she is already plotting a return—maybe even for Trash Beach Fest (August 23rd, 2025) which was announced via a banner that was unfurled during our show!

Halifax, Nova Scotia

Halifax is in Nova Scotia, and it's the biggest city in Atlantic Canada and has a pretty well-known punk scene with a long lineage of crusty punk, youth crew hardcore, folk punk, etc. Current bands likes MUTATED VOID, BLACK DOG (d-beat legends who we got to play with on this tour), and BOTFLY are keeping Halifax on the map right now. Ever heard of CONTAGIUM, LIFE CHAIN, FRAGMENT, WORD ON THE STREET, or xENVISIONx? Look them up.

It's common for bands to play both an all ages show and a bar show in Halifax, to maximize the turnout and help make the long trip worthwhile for touring bands. Gus's Pub is a common bar for punk shows, but for all ages shows Radstorm is the spot.

It's a legendary social centre, jamspace, zine library and all-ages show venue that has been digging in its claws to stay open amid Halifax's soaring rents and property values. We learned that they have successfully fundraised to buy their building through crowdfunding and a community financing initiative, so hopefully they will be around for a long time! Despite this, they are still facing constant harassment from the property developer neighbours. Halifax has had a pretty crushing wave of development since the start of the pandemic as many people across Canada who started working remotely moved there and bought property. Rents have shot up and everyone we spoke to had problems making their rent. In this context a space like Radstorm is crucial.

After landing in Halifax (again immediately greeted by posters for our show wheatpasted to a Canada Post box!) we hunted down the highly-recommended vegan donair, took a stroll around historic Point Pleasant Park, and then rolled up to Radstorm. Unfortunately, due to aforementioned neighbour tensions and code issues, the space is currently operating with a 50-person capacity limit, which we hit pretty much immediately upon doors opening. Some latecomers didn't get in, but the young punks who showed up promptly all did!

A brand new grindcore act SCATTERED TEETH opened the show, followed by VOMT, a scrappy punk trio who would become our mini-tour-mates. Despite the small cap, the show felt full and fun, although Halifax being a bigger city meant the crowd was a bit more self-conscious and didn't start really going off until almost the end of our set (our friend Renee getting on the mic for our INFEST cover helped!). It was definitely another night for a local sandwich, and d-beat warriors BLACK DOG were a treat as always—we would've almost driven to Halifax just to see them. Halfway through their set, nervous eyes began to dart around the room searching for the source of a familiar scent—whiffs of smoke were coming from the bass cab. The gear was quickly swapped out and BLACK DOG continued their assault of noisy dbeats, grunts, and earsplitting guitars. Fried gear aside, Lucas who booked the show dealt with a lot of chaos that night, on top of doing sound AND door/managing capacity AND dealing with the cops showing up during our set. Radstorm can't be stopped!

Bear River, Nova Scotia

There are many smaller towns around Atlantic Canada. Besides the bigger cities in New Brunswick (Fredericton, Moncton, St. John), we've heard about recent shows in Bathurst, Sackville and Miramichi. Summerside is the second largest town on PEI and it seems possible to play a show there. In Nova Scotia there's Truro an hour north of Halifax and then the whole rural section of western Nova Scotia where many punks, queers, anarchists and other weirdos live rurally.

To try and fill out our tour, we got a show in Bear River, located about two hours west of Halifax along the Bay of Fundy. The turnout was great as people from all over the area drove in to attend the first punk show ever in Bear River. We ended up in Bear River simply because we had a good friend/retired show promoter there who was willing to find a space (a soap workshop in a community arts building), source a PA, and put together the show. We can't recommend any specific rural or small town in Atlantic Canada, the place for you to play is anywhere you have a friend or fan willing to pull it off for you.

If you are talking to a promoter in one of the bigger towns, ask if they know any bands or punk kids in a smaller town or rural area nearby who might be really excited to bring a band to their specific town. Keep your expectations low—it might just be you and another band playing in a shed. But if you want to fill out the tour and have an extra show or two, as well some adventure, it will be absolutely worth it and you will likely be surprised.

After the short two-hour drive from Halifax, we were at our friend's place, eating lunch in the cute cabin they built themself and making friends with their sweet dog. Everything on the tour past Fredericton was new to Taylor, so we made sure to make another beach stop and see the legendary Bay of Fundy.

Stopping for a coffee in a small town on the way to Bear River to load in for the show, our car started acting weird. It wasn't totally dead, but we were about 30 minutes away from the venue and definitely didn't have time to troubleshoot it or risk getting stuck in a worse spot (at least we were in a town, with a few garages nearby). Our friends were able to procure an extra vehicle (#RuralLife) and we swapped our gear into a different car, abandoning ours as a tomorrow problem.

Luckily our new pals VOMT from Halifax were able to get off work and were super game to come play this weird gig with us on a Monday night in the middle of nowhere! Additionally, the promoters had put an announcement about the show in a local newspaper, and a local band had reached out asking if they could open—a group of skatepunk dads + one of their 14-year-old sons, playing mostly covers plus one original. So in the end it came together and we had a proper three-band show! The turnout was great, probably about 50-60 people, and we were grinning from ear-to-ear the whole time, despite some underlying dread about the car situation. It was super wholesome, and people seemed genuinely stoked and thankful that we had come out there to play—definitely one of the more special and unique shows of tour.

Newfoundland

Newfoundland is a large island (the size of New Brunswick or Maine) located 160 kms (100 miles) off the eastern coast of Canada. To get to St. John's, the main city, you drive four hours east from Halifax, then take an eight hour ferry, and then drive 10 more hours. At that point you are basically a stone's throw from Greenland, and are in a special half-hour-ahead time zone.

It sounds daunting, but it's a worthwhile place to go and play. St. John's has always had a punk scene (ever heard of DA SLYME?) and in recent years it's more common for bands to get flown out there to play a weekend. Still, whether driving or flying, it seems like only 2-3 punk bands per year will put in the effort to get there.

Previously it would be hard to get a show anywhere besides St. John's unless you were willing to try and book your own show at a bar and hope that the bar regulars like whatever kind of punk you play (fine if you play folk punk, not so great if you play powerviolence). But these days, Billy in Corner Brook (a city on the western coast of the island, closer to the ferry) is coordinating with Barely There/Liam (in St. John's) to ensure a string of shows for any band who comes through: if you time it right, you can play four shows on the island, with an all ages show and a bar show in both Corner Brook and St. John's, making the ferry cost and logistics well worth it. There also seem to be scenes brewing in other towns—we saw some promising graffiti in Grand Falls-Windsor, and at our St. John's shows we met punks who had traveled from different smaller towns to see us play.

Obviously there are no guarantees, but from our experience we had absolutely no problem covering costs—despite Newfoundland being quite an economically depressed place, the scenes there are incredibly supportive. Bands don't come that often, so it's a big deal when they do. Bring more merch than you think you'll need!

Corner Brook, Newfoundland

After getting our car towed to a trusted neighbour mechanic and re-loading our gear into a rental car, we headed toward the ferry terminal in North Sydney, crossing onto island #2 (Cape Breton Island, part of Nova Scotia) and arriving with plenty of time for our near-midnight departure on the overnight sailing to island #3, Newfoundland! In retrospect, it was good timing for the car to break down, as we were grateful to have a more reliable vehicle as we hurtled into the blackness of the North Atlantic towards "The Rock." We slept decently on the ferry, except the last hour or two where we were occasionally woken by heavy winds rocking the vessel, the island greeting us with a windstorm and 110km/h gusts. Welcome to Newfoundland!

We really can't overstate how beautiful Newfoundland is—it's like Iceland, Ireland, and a bit of B.C. thrown in. If you time it right you can see icebergs and/or whales, and even if you don't time it right there are dramatic landscapes, beautiful cliffs crashing into the ocean, abandoned U.S. military ruins, thick fog and allegedly lots of moose (although we didn't see any). A women on the ferry home even informed us we'd just missed a herd of Caribou crossing the highway!

The show in Corner Brook was a blast. Another teenager band, BLOOM, played covers and originals, and were incredibly good sports about having to leave the bar immediately after their set because they were all under 19, RIP!! If we would have known that was gonna happen we probably would've played a few more songs during sound check, sorry guys! LIFE CRISIS, one the promoter Billy's bands, played next—math-y screamo-y metalcore, they totally ripped. The room felt a bit empty when BLOOM and their parents left, but the crowd started filling in during LIFE CRISIS' set and by the time we played there were plenty of people there and the energy in the room was great! We didn't book a second all ages gig in Corner Brook because it was Easter weekend, but next time we come through we'll definitely prioritize it, as from everything we heard the all ages scene there is thriving.

St John's, Newfoundland

After the long but stunning drive across the island and a proper night off, we rolled up to the Peter Easton Pub for St. John's gig #1. Everyone seemed to have a strong affection for the Peter E, a neighbourhood bar with a dedicated show room. While we're both not usually wild about bar shows, the place had a great vibe and was clearly a comfort zone for most of the bands and attendees. The five-band show moved along efficiently, with one of the promoter Liam's bands BIRCH BEER opening, replacing our friends DESPERTÁ, who unfortunately had to drop (luckily one of DESPERTÁ's singer Peppa's other bands MAGICK did play, plus the drummer/our friend and host Christeen joined us on the mic for the INFEST cover!). People were dancing during the whole show, but DISCIPLINARY ACTION really brought the energy up to the next level, they were a tough act to follow. But there was no reason to worry—this was hands-down the most passionate crowd we've ever played to. People were singing along, moshing at the right parts and going nuts, and thanked us profusely in kind words and sheer enthusiasm. The Friday show was closed out by the excellent LIFE JOLT, clearly a local favourite, with lots more moshing and singalongs.

We spent the next day sightseeing around St. John's and had dinner at the second killer buddhist veg restaurant of the trip (shoutout Peaceful Loft!). Then it was time for our last show of the tour—the first all ages show at the Anna Templeton Centre, a labyrinthine former bank right downtown. There was some overlap in the crowd from the night before, but with the addition of lots of younger people, including the opening band TWIN RINKS who wore construction helmets/vests and seemed to be really stoked about making loud noises, hell yeah. FLOORWALKER and INVISIBLE HAND (another of Liam's bands) played and even though Taylor was tired, she moshed for both because they absolutely fucking ripped.

While we were setting up, we got a text message that our ferry crossing home had been postponed because of more extreme wind. This was pretty rough news—getting home was already gonna be a big trip, plus the logistical challenges of recovering our broken-down car. But we managed to compartmentalize the tomorrow-problems, and played a final awesome last set with another super enthusiastic crowd response. There were a lot of young aspiring photo/videographers at this show. At least three DLSR's, a camcorder, and even someone with a Nintendo DS documenting the whole show. Kids are just excited and trying to participate any way they can, but sometimes there can be too many people trying to take photos. For our last song, we made a polite request: everyone put away the cameras and mosh. It worked, and the room exploded as young and old went all-in to dance. It was a great way to end our last set of tour. Local metalcore band HANGYOURHEAD closed the show, absolutely check them out if you're on the metalcore revival train because they nailed it. Perfect end to a basically perfect tour.

St. John's didn't seem to suffer from the shortage of bands or lack of participation you might expect in a small or isolated place—even though there were one or two shared members, I was impressed that we had two shows with four different local bands each night. And the bills weren't even that mixed—almost all hardcore bands on the faster/heavier side of things, with a thread of powerviolence influence running through many of them (possibly Martin's old band VILE INTENT playing there in 2018 could be partially responsible for this...). There were a lot of people at the shows and playing in the bands who weren't dudes, which made me very stoked. There were also a ton of straightedge kids, some of whom we got a cute group photo with at the end of the all ages show, and several people participating in the scene in other ways by doing zines and putting out tapes (shoutout again to Liam who booked our shows and does Barely There distro, and also Steve of Open Veins distro/zine who kindly loaded us up with his wares, took some of the photos in this article AND moshed very hard both nights!).

Notes on getting to Newfoundland

Some bands will just fly in to St John's to play one or two shows, and this is great but if you do that you'll deprive yourself of the beautiful drive across the island, playing Corner Brook or any other towns, not to mention the rest of the Maritimes. Doing a more traditional tour to Newfoundland requires a bit of logistics and planning, but no less than visiting other faraway places. It's all relative.

Ferry

There are two ferry routes to Newfoundland. Both depart North Sydney, NS, but one goes to Port-aux-Basques on the west side of Newfoundland, and the other goes to Argentia which is a bit closer to St John's and only runs in the summer. Don't take the Argentia ferry, it's for tourists. It's a lot longer, and a lot more expensive: you have to book a cabin for everyone in addition to paying for your vehicle, and you still have to drive a few hours from Argentia to St John's. It's not cheaper than driving across the island so you don't save any money on gas. It's not even really faster. You just spend more time on the boat and less time driving.

Take the Port-aux-Basques ferry, and probably do the overnight ferry to give you more time for hanging out. You aren't allowed to stay in your vehicle for the crossing, but there are comfortable reclining chairs like you'd find on a train, so it's possible to sleep.

Weather

Avoid traveling there in winter, as the weather can make a lot of things unpredictable. Even touring in April we ran into ferry cancellations that thankfully didn't cause us to miss any shows. Planning to go anytime between May and October is probably best. Newfoundland only has true summer weather in August, but outside of August your reward is spectacular fog!

Conclusions

Overall, we were totally bowled over by this tour. There wasn't a bad show. Someone asked us which was our favourite show and we pretty much just ended up naming every show for one reason or another. We ran out of tapes and were low on shirts before we even got to Newfoundland. We brought hundreds of free/PWYC zines with us and got rid of almost all of them. Part of our good fortune was having old friends and good connections who hooked us up with killer shows and local support, but even people we didn't know were so incredibly generous, supportive and grateful that we came.

We had two more Montreal tours following behind us: our two-stepper friends ONE TRACK MIND (pairing with Halifax's BREAKNECK) came through the weekend after us, and TYPEFACE and LOBOTOMITE the weekend after that, though these bands just did a long weekend tour through the Maritimes rather than the full Atlantic Canada experience of traveling to Newfoundland. Everyone had a similar top-tier experience as us. Great shows, great crowds, and new friends made.

We would highly recommend touring Atlantic Canada if you want to go somewhere beautiful, slightly off the beaten path, and where your coming through will be super appreciated and contribute to helping build these awesome smaller scenes!