On November 9th Fucked Up will host the first of a four-part series titled Long Winter to help us get through the cold months ahead. Hosted at the Great Hall, each night will feature a different "director" and consist of a mix of music, art, dance, food and literary readings.

The unique aspect of the series is the interactivity the organizers are hoping to foster. "The idea is to have a ton of different shit happening all at once carnival-style," explains Mike Haliechuk. "Fucked Up hasn't done a club show in Toronto for a while, but we didn't want to book a normal club show. We've got lots of friends who do cool things that aren't music so we thought it would be a good idea to present a more immersive show with lots of things happening at once."

They've recently announced a few performers for the first night of the series including 13 year old girl band Unfinished Business, relative newcomers DIANA (made up of vocalist/guitarist Carmen Elle of Army Girls, Destroyer saxophonist Joseph Shabason and drum wizard Kieran Adams), and Fucked Up themselves, with much more still to be announced.

If that lineup hasn't peaked your interest, the basic sentiment behind the series should be enough to warm a frozen heart. "Winter is tough and it's always nice to have something to depend on," Haliechuk says of the timing of the series. "It's pay what you can so we're hoping that will encourage people to take a more casual approach...where you can come in and out as you please and do more than just come inside, sit around and watch bands and drink and then leave."

I feel warmer already!

Long Winter runs November 9th, December 14th, January 11 and February 8th. All evenings are presented at The Great Hall and all are PWYC/all ages. Look forward to more detailed previews closer to the event dates and also follow their very new Twitter https://twitter.com/LongWinterTO for updates.

Photo by Cristina Naccarato