The farewell tour: Amid rising costs, a Canadian doctor ends his Japanese music festival

Contributing writer

Montreal – After 13 years, this was not the ending Steven Tanaka envisioned for his last music festival.

Up to this point, the Japanese Canadian anesthesiologist had all cylinders running, touring five Japanese indie bands across Canada through the Victoria Day long weekend last month.

He’d sold out shows in Toronto and Vancouver, and gathered a good crowd for the one in Montreal. Performing on a long weekend that marks the unofficial start of summer for Canadians proved to place a small dent in attendance but the turnout was the best thus far.

This could be due to a conflict with your ad-blocking or security software.

Please add japantimes.co.jp and piano.io to your list of allowed sites.

If this does not resolve the issue or you are unable to add the domains to your allowlist, please see this FAQ.

We humbly apologize for the inconvenience.

In a time of both misinformation and too much information, quality journalism is more crucial than ever.By subscribing, you can help us get the story right.

With your current subscription plan you can comment on stories. However, before writing your first comment, please create a display name in the Profile section of your subscriber account page.

Your subscription plan doesn't allow commenting. To learn more see our FAQ