The 2016 Uniter Fiver

The five favourite new local bands, as chosen by you

Five winners might seem like a lot for your average contest, but given the strength of Manitoba’s musical community, choosing only five new local bands to highlight is nearly an impossible task. So thank you, readers and voters, for your help. 

These five acts – The Middle Coast, Deep Dark Cave, Adam Hanney & Co., Ashley Bieniarz and Fox Lake – were voted as your favourite new local bands for 2016. Out of these five, an industry panel selected The Middle Coast as the big winner of this year’s Fiver, so they’ll be headlining the showcase on Jan. 14 at The Good Will (see page 11 for full show details). 

Congratulations to our big winner, our Fiver finalists, and to all the bands who entered the contest. Fiver season is a great time to discover new sounds, and collectively, you brought some pretty cool tracks to the table. 

This year’s Uniter Fiver graduating class crosses genres, scenes and even cities. They’re fresh faces and veteran musicians with new projects, they’re solo acts and full bands. They’re a lot more than can be summed up here, which is why they each got a full profile to introduce themselves. 

In all the hustle and bustle of everything shiny and new, let’s not forget the Fivers of yore. This is our third annual iteration of this contest, and so we’ve also checked in with last year’s finalists to see what they’ve been up to since the 2015 showcase. 

If you read closely, you might even see traces of previous Fiver winners too. This was never meant to be a flash-in-the-pan type of contest – it’s a chance to give newer bands a little boost, a solid start and a chance to make new friends with both audiences and fellow musicians. So without further ado, let’s get to know each other a little better.

The Middle Coast 

Deep Dark Cave 

Adam Hanney & Co. 

Ashley Bieniarz 

Fox Lake

The 2015 Fiver finalists: Where are they now?

Published in Volume 70, Number 15 of The Uniter (January 14, 2016)

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