Downtown Belleville was bubbling this past weekend, as Empire Rockfest brought live music to The Friendly City once again.
Several thousand fans got to see Tony Silvestri, Luscious, the Jake Clemons Band, Trooper, Lights, David Wilcox, and The Arkells on Friday and Saturday evening.
Max Kerman is the lead singer for The Arkells and spoke to Quinte News sidestage about loving live music.
Audio PlayerAudio Player“The trick is to keep it interesting for yourself, because I think it’s human nature that once you’ve done something five times, I’ve seen lots of bands that play in front of thousands of people that look bored on stage.”
“Everyone’s seen those bands that seem to have the gig of a lifetime, but they just seem bored and it’s because they haven’t asked themselves how do I make this interesting for myself? The great thing about our band is every show we go how can I make this show worthwhile, how can we make this show a little bit different?”
“It, it was a nice feeling weekend. And everybody was in a really good mood. It’s lovely to see downtown Belleville rocking and people having a good time and that’s what the two nights were.”
“Our tech people, our management of the theatre area. All of our volunteers, everybody that helps out. It, it’s a huge undertaking but everybody takes, I think, a lot of pride in bringing this to Belleville.”
PHOTOS FROM THE WEEKEND CAN BE SEEN BELOW
The Bearcat, David Wilcox performs at Empire Rockfest 2025 (Photo: @debwalters for Quinte News)
Trooper pumps up the crowd at Empire Rockfest 2025 (Photo: @debwalters for Quinte News)
Brielle LeBlanc of the band Luscious opening for David Wilcox and Trooper at Empire Rockfest (Photo: @debwalters for Quinte News)
Max Kerman with (l) Maya Anderson and Ashleigh Harvey (r) from Rock 107/ Mix 97 (Photo: Tim Durkin/ Quinte News
Lights provides an uptempo performance at Rockfest (Photo: @debwalters for Quinte News)
The Arkells’ frontman Max Kerman brings the crowd to its feet Saturday at Rockfest (Photo: @debwalters for Quinte News)
The Arkells rock the stage on Saturday evening (Photo: Ashleigh Harvey/Quinte News)
