ROCK THIS TOWN RETURNS WITH A NEW ERA OF MUSIC HISTORY
Rock This Town: A New Wave premiered Friday, Feb. 26, 2026, to a sold-out crowd at The Princess Original Cinemas in Uptown Waterloo. The documentary is a follow-up of sorts to 2022’s Rock This Town which told the story of the music scene in Kitchener Waterloo during the 1960s and ’70s.
A New Wave recaps the music of the 80s and goes through the venues, promoters and stories that made up that period in the region’s cultural history.
At its best, A New Wave feels like cozying up with a couple of Kitchener Waterloo Main stays to reminiscence on a bygone era. The height of the documentary comes from interesting tales on bands like The Psychedelic Furs, Echo and The Bunnymen and Teenage Head. Venues pop up and close, record store parties and late nights at Pop The Gator and The Backdoor paint an engaging picture of a nightlife in a city that has shifted.
While many things change, many also stay the same. Watching the movie, some similarities became evident. The film recalls a venue that occupied The Huether Hotel, at the time called Upstairs At The Kent. The film recalls that the Adlys family had some extra space, and the young, eager concert promoters made use of this space to host their own rock shows.
Recently, youngsters have once again found some unused space at The Huether Hotel, hosting DIY concerts in the basement of the hotel. Thirty years and the only thing that has changed is rock music has walked down a couple of flights of stairs at the Huether.
Rock This Town: A New Wave suffers from trying to tell the general story of pop music in the 80s from a broader lens. While this material is important to give context to concert going in KW, it felt shallow and beyond the scope of the film. The film shines when the story gets specific. Let’s hear about the time Iggy Pop wouldn’t let any non-female reporters over the age of 22 interview him at Bingemans, and not the general story of the British punk scene beginnings. There are other documentaries that focus on those topics.
Seeing a film like this in the place that it is focused on is a special kind of experience. Kitchener Waterloo, and generally Canadian film making has been lucky in recent years to receive this kind of treatment. Seeing the film in a packed theatre brought back memories of seeing Blackberry in Waterloo filled with ex-RIM employees. It was clear the film meant something to the people sitting in the audience.
Audiences would gasp when shots of King Street would reveal the Walper Hotel, and people could be seen leaning over to exclaim to a family member “I was at that show”. A testament to the important work a documentary like this does could certainly be seen in the excited faces of theatre goers as they left the film.
One such attendee stopped Gary Stewart, the producer of the film, in the lobby.
“I was at that Clash show—how did you even get them,” they said.
“Well, I called up their booker, and they agreed to come to Kitchener. No Mick Jones, which was a drag, but it was still great to do The Clash,” Stewart said.
Stewart sees technology, and the overwhelming level of options available for entertainment today as the primary reason that concert going has suffered as a past time. He also cites the rising cost of living as an additional factor in the lack of concert culture.
“Going to a concert was sort of a badge of honor. Music was just so big, and the hairstyles and clothing. And in the late 90s early 2000s, tech started driving the culture. We were one of the places in the world that really drove tech with U of W and Blackberry and that whole story. And that really changed things,” he said.
“There are lots of options, but it’s also a lot more expensive. It’s not unusual to spend 200 bucks to go see a concert…It’s really changed,” Stewart said.
Overall, Rock This Town: A New Wave does exactly its job. The film is a must-see for anyone that experienced music in this town at that point in history.
The stories are poignant and fun, and the archival footage of bands and concerts are beautiful. The whole team has done a great job and it’s clearly a labor of love to the town the scene in which they were involved.
“Support your local artists. Try new things,” Stewart said.
#1960s #1970s #1980s #aNewWave #AydenElworthy #Concerts #diy #echoAndTheBunnymen #localHistory #PopTheGator #princessOriginalCinemas #rockThisTown #soldOut #teenageHead #theBackdoorPaint #thePsychedelicFurs #uptown #WalperHotel #waterloo
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