Surrey’s Party for the Planet 2012 Concert Night of Family Fun

The Celebration

In a time when being green and careful about nature and environment is one of the most important topics all over the world, the best efforts are those done down at the base, and that’s exactly what The City of Surrey‘s intention is with the Party for the Planet.

This annual event, organized by the City and generous sponsors, gathers every year thousands upon thousands of the citizens to the Central City area to celebrate our planet, nature and Surrey’s rich and diverse environment.

This mixture of education, fun and music is becoming one of the most important events in the City’s annual calendar attracting locally and globally known people wishing to talk about environmental issues, but also send their own message to the masses about the current status of the planet.

Friday night was devoted to musical celebration of the Planet and to be honest this was an amazing party which showed that Surrey is able to be responsible, careful and celebratory city.

Our own Good for Grapes, followed by great The Boom Booms, Raghav and at the end but not least important Down with Webster warmed pretty cold evening and night at the Central City Area with great music, entertainment and interaction with fans.

Raghav and DJ Goddess on stage

I must to say up to the last night I barely heard about Good for Grapes but now I’m glad that I attend their concert last night. You should check them and enjoy their beautiful music, recently they were introduced to the Canadian public through Canada’s Got Talent show where they made big success. I hope that they’ll become much known and well appreciated representative of our city and its culture.

Surrey’s own Good For Grapes give a performance which makes you want to replay this video over and over!

I was amazed with The Boom Booms just because they came out with such interesting approach to this celebration making breaks in their performances to talk about environmental issues.

Vancouver’s The Boom Booms work the crowd on stage at Party for the Planet

During one of the songs they stopped for the moment and mentioned their recent visit to Brazil where big environmental damage will be committed upon completion of the new dam, and that’s exactly what’s the real spirit of this celebration not only to care about our own issues but to learn about the global problems and figuring out how to change the course as soon as possible.

Down with Webster attracted largest number of fans to the Central City Plaza. Raghav was here last year at the Fusion Fest with an amazing concert attracting several thousands of hardcore fans in interaction at highest levels. Last night he did a same. Great music, great vibes and great fans. Later he stopped at the merchandise tent. Passionately and with great patience he met those who respect his work and he fulfilled all their wishes and requests.

What to say about the Down With Webster? There’s no need to say too much, one big WOW! would be enough. Such a great energy, ability to warm that cold night with lyrics and moves on the stage. They showed their responsibility for greener and safer environment with major break in their tradition: last night they didn’t throw any plastic red cups as they did it in the past. Although they didn’t promise cups will not fly on some other concerts, I’m pretty sure they’ll try to slow down that trend.

One very impressive element of the celebration was Surrey Celebration Dance Team. Oh my God! Those guys are amazing! Excellent moves, unbelievable attitude and rarely seen level of interaction not with adults but with the youngest ones.

When you see a large group of teenagers engaged in their usual activities and suddenly they slow down, look around and start brining two-three year old babies into the circle to dance with them, to smile, to enjoy that powerful spirit of music and dance. That was a clear example of that well known Surrey motive: Future lives here! And I must to say standing aside with my camera and trying to capture those impressive moments I was more than convinced that future really lives here in Surrey.

CTVBC‘s crew lead by Mike Killeen, Michael Kuss and Perry Solkowski was one of the biggest attractions of the Day 1. Surrey was awarded with live coverage of the Party and CTV News at 6 from the Central City Plaza. Great opportunity to celebrate and show our celebratory site with province wide public.

The night was free of speeches and political elements, some of the municipal officials were present there, including Mayor Dianne Watts but just as a visitors. At one moment we saw Mayor Watts walking around and talking to citizens, exchanging some high fives with Surrey teenagers, following with her comment to my tweet that those guys were great. RCMP and private security team presence was visible and large, but as far as I know there was not report of any major incidents or need for action.

To emphasize security situation yesterday I need to mention an interesting scene where two police officers are walking around the plaza talking with public and one of the was carrying coffee cup in his hand, and once more I need to credit them with that educational element because in some many occasions I saw them talking with kids or teenagers about safety issues.

Photographs by Aziz Dhamani & Esmir Milavic

Read about Day 2 on Esmir’s Blog From Bosnia to Canada…

[awesome-gallery id=14990]