Live at Squamish's Friday night Hootenanny starts the party

The Live at Squamish festival might not break out the big guns like the Tragically Hip and City & Colour until later on this weekend, but the party definitely started early tonight with the locals only Friday Night Hootenanny.

Up first was Good For Grapes, a peppy septet that combined elements of indie pop grandeur with shit-stomping folk. Accordionist Sean MacKeigan gladly played the fool amongst his friends, stretching out his instrument, grimacing wildly between choruses of "whoas," and doing an Ed Grimley-worthy jig.

From there, No Sinner offered up super sleazy, bar room blooze. Apparently singer Colleen Rennison doesn't have perfect pitch, as she kicked off her opening lines on the swinging "Boo Hoo Hoo" in the wrong key. Things got back under way after six-stringer Eric Campbell's chords brought the vocalist back in the right direction. "I need this guy," she joked before launching full force into the song with her cigarette-stained vibrato.

Washboard Union brought its own bales of hay on-stage for its set, which veered between amp-crankin' country rock and barn-burning jam sessions. "Midnight Train" got especially rowdy, blending chicken-pickin' banjo lines and, yes, even some washboard scrubbing.

The Matinee tread the same sort of ground as Washboard Union, but with a slicker and goofily macho vibe. At one point, the unit awkardly juiced up the midsection of one tune with a melodramatic and testosterone-addled take on Led Zeppelin's "No Quarter". The band settled back into new country territory for its travel anthem "The Road".

Closing out the night was Rich Hope, who ran through a set where rip roaring roadhouse rockers mingled with country standards. Shortly after wrapping up the apocalypse-anticipating creeper boogie "I See Trouble," Hope and the rest of the six-piece enjoyed "Wild Turkey Time," with each member slugging back a bit of sauce. "I know it's a family affair, but my best friend's a bird," Hope quipped just before his band jumped into an apropos cover of Merle Haggard's "The Bottle Let Me Down."

The field in front of the Garibaldi stage, one of four on the festival grounds, may have only been about half full, but the applause-offering audience that showed up for Live at Squamish's first night of festivities were happy to be there—even if the beer garden let them down by closing up early.