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.  

WATERLOO GAMING LOUNGE BRINGS HIGH-POWERED PLAY TO UPTOWN

On the second floor of 1 King St. N., lit by multicoloured RGB strips, over a dozen high-end gaming PCs whir to life, each loaded with over 70 games. The Waterloo Gaming Lounge has become a hub for community and competition since it opened in October 2025. Fitting right into the middle of uptown Waterloo’s nightlife, the space provides a unique experience for folks looking for something to do during a night out or space for teams to practice their skills together.  

Tony Shiff, owner of the space, is a veteran of the video game development industry but does not consider himself a core PC gamer. His inspiration to open the Waterloo Gaming Lounge instead comes from observing current social gaming habits in his own home.  

“My son is [a gamer], and the idea started because I saw him in the basement a lot of the time gaming with a whole group of friends. And I was like, why don’t you ever get together? He said, ‘I have my PC and they have their PC, where are we going to meet each other?’” Shiff said.  

Modern PC gaming at a high level requires expensive and bulky hardware. If someone is even able to afford a powerful rig, disassembling their whole setup and transporting it to a friend’s home is far from convenient. The Waterloo Gaming Lounge instead charges an hourly rate to access their top-of-the-line machines and an inviting, if sometimes chaotic, gaming environment. 

“PC gaming is often a solitary experience, and I wanted to do something that made it more social,” Shiff said. 

Some of the most popular games the Waterloo Gaming Lounge offers are Valorant, a first-person hero shooter; League of Legends, a multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) game; and Counterstrike 2, a traditional first-person shooter. While these titles take up a lot of the playtime for gamers, Shiff was particularly encouraged by the impact offering less popular games has had on customers.  

“There is a whole community of people who play Counterstrike 1.6, a 25-year-old game. They were going to Hamilton before we opened because that was the closest place,” Shiff said. 

The Counterstrike 1.6 community at the Waterloo Gaming Lounge highlights the unique experience the space provides. One team of five gamers sets up in one room, another in the room next door.  

No headsets, just two teams calling out strategies and laughing together. They turn to pat each other on the back after a big win and run into the next room to playfully tease their opponents after a defeat.  

“They’re weekly regulars. It’s like a modern bowling league,” Shiff said. 

Directly across from the Counterstrike 1.6 crew sits another group of players grinding through ranked matches of League of Legends, a game that rewards consistent communication between players. Although League of Legends does not require the latest high-end graphic cards or other equipment to run, groups make the effort to get together to play the game in person.  

For Ian Zhang, a University of Waterloo student ranked platinum in League of Legends, Shiff’s goal of building a social gaming space resonates.   

“It’s more fun to play with other people physically together. As a kid, you’re on the couch playing with your friends on a console, and as you get older, it’s hard to do that. So, it’s just a nice place to get together with friends,” Zhang said.  

Waterloo Gaming Lounge is also hosting a series of tournaments for their most popular games. Previous tournaments have been held in Valorant, League of Legends and Counterstrike 2. All have been free to play and come with a gift card prize for the winners. While these events were well attended, Shiff was particularly happy to see the success of bringing together smaller gaming communities.  

“One of the most interesting tournaments for me was DOTA 2, which is not a big community in Canada…as it is in Europe and Asia,” Shiff said.  

Making gaming accessible and communal for everyone has become a guiding principle of the Waterloo Gaming Lounge. Players can log in to their own accounts for each game to rank up and maintain use of items or characters they may have. The lounge also provides a limited number of house accounts for new players to use, depending on the game. Gamers of all skill levels and group sizes are welcome. 

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