Sault robots invited on stage by festival headliner (44 photos)

Each time SooToday has visited the Northern Lights Festival Boreal (NLFB) in Sudbury, we’ve left with almost too many highlights to list.

The July 2015 three-day event was no different.

But for two young Saultites, we’d wager that the Sunday night headlining performance by Dan Mangan + Blacksmith was their one and only highlight.

Jackson Reed and Jade Robertson, wearing handcrafted cardboard robot heads, were invited on stage as Managn performed Robots from his acclaimed 2009 release Nice, Nice, Very Nice.

“It was a rush of adrenaline to get up on stage,” said Robertson following the performance. “I’m a Dan Mangan fanatic.”

Oddly enough, this isn’t the first Mangan stage visit for Reed.

The first time occurred in 2012 at Osheaga in Montreal.

In fact, Mangan left the stage to retrieve Reed himself, video of which can be seen here.

Both Robertson and Reed say it might be time to put the robot heads to bed and come up with a new plan to catch Mr. Mangan’s attention.

In addition to these two young lads sharing stage time with an idol, there were numerous other memorable moments at this year’s NLFB.

LOCAL2 cameras paid a visit to capture some of those highlights for Tuned, the latest episode of which features an interview with the performers of the These Boots Are Made For Walking worksop.

See the episode here.

We also spoke with festival artistic director Paul Loewenberg and asked him about the lack of Sault talent at NLFB, available for viewing here.

And for many visitors to this year’s festival, the return of the Melbourne Ska Orchestra was more than worth the price of admission.

We had the opportunity to interview the band’s talented and charismatic front man Nicky Bomba for Tuned, available here.

To keep up to date with everything Northern Lights Festival Boreal, visit the website here.