After getting home from taking photos of an Event like June’s ‘Festival Multiculturel de Hawkesbury Multicultural Festival’ [link], and uploading the hundreds and hundreds (HUNDREDS!!) of shots from my camera to my PC, I often think to myself “holy crap, what the hell am I going to do with 800+ photos, all of which are more than 3MB each!?”. After finally finishing the upload, I then have to sift through the massive amount of photos to try and find two or three of them that are in focus, and don’t feature my thumb, to send to any newspaper [The Review] that might be interested in them… or just simply to put one up as Proof-of-Life on my Facebook page [link].

…it’s definitely a lot to handle, I think I really need some staff. Maybe an intern or twelve… if you’re into it, just let me know — it would be unpaid, of course, that’s just the way I roll.

The ‘Hawkesbury Multicultural Festival’ has quickly become one of my favourite Festivals to shoot. In the first three years of its existence the Festival highlighted bands from across the Francophonie cultural world, featuring acts like Manon Séguin, Steve Levac, Élisabeth Blouin-Braithwaite, Zachary Richard, Claude Dubois, Katerine Sansregret and Justin Roy, Radio Radio, a First Nations artist who performs under the name ‘Pako’ (name he was born with: Pascal Ottawa), Folklofolie, The Squirrel’s Nuts, Les Roadies, Blue Jeans Bleu, Yao, Marven James and The Box (which is totally frigging awesome!!) [link].

This year the Town of Hawkesbury brought in a mix of local talent, and performers with international experience for the two-day Festival, like L’Orignal born and raised chanteuse, Manon Séguin; a Montreal-based comic (who spent way waaaay waaaaaay waaaaaaaaay too much time mocking Vankleek Hill and Moose Creek), Mehdi Bousaidan; country-folk singer, Kristine St-Pierre; Joémi Verdon; David Segreti & Dano Peace; Roch Voisine; Luv & Let Die — a rock band formed in 2023, while the students attended high school at the L’École secondaire catholique régionale de Hawkesbury (ESCRH); Joémi Verdon; Gabriel Torrado… and a few others, including the dynamic, high-octane, Elyzabeth Diaga & her Queens of Rock show.

Elyzabeth [link] has been performing in front of an audience since she was 17-years old. A year later she formed her own cover band, called ‘Dizzy Miss Lizzy’ — named after the classic 1958 song by rock legend, Larry Williams [link]. She performed with the band across Quebec. In 2012 — after several years singing in musicals, and even voicing video game characters, she came up with the idea of a cover band featuring songs solely by female artists. Elyzabeth & the Queens of Rock then began to cover high profile performers such as Heart, Pat Benatar, Joan Jett, French-Canadian icon, Marjo, Melissa Etheridge, Alanis Morissette, and even Lady Gaga…and many, many others — in 2020 she was also featured on ‘The Voice: Quebec’ (La Voix).

“Since its creation, Queens of Rock has been performing on the stages of some of Quebec’s most prized venues such as Lac Leamy Casino, the DIX30, The Rialto Theater, the Imperial Bell in Quebec City and also as [the] opening act for CCR rockin’ a crowd of 20 000 people.”

Also in 2020, after a few very successful shows in Las Vegas, Elyzabeth & the Queens of Rock [link] were invited into a residency at the Las Vegas club, ‘Mosaic On The Strip’ [link], where they performed 175 sold out shows, and won many awards in the process. Basically, she’s very good at what she does, and has been ever since she started.

So… to see the photos from Day One of the Multicultural Festival, featuring Roch Voisine, and even a few shots of Manon Séguin, click here [link]… I’ll wait here. Okay, now that you’re back, go ahead and click on the first photo to get the carousel going. I hope you enjoy them… it’s good to be productive again.