Leamington Gearing Up For Hogs For Hospice Festival

YQGrocks | Our Lady Peace Announced as 2017 Hogs for Hospice Headliner

Hogs For Hospice, Southern Ontario’s only three-day motorcycle rally, is gearing up for its 2017 festival with one of the most successful Canadian bands of the post-grunge era, Our Lady Peace headlining the event. The festival begins tomorrow (Friday, August 4, 2017).

Headed by superstar lead vocalist Raine Maida since its formation, Our Lady Peace also consists of Duncan Coutts on bass, Steve Mazur as lead guitarist, and Jason Pierce on drums. The band has sold millions of albums worldwide, won four Juno Awards and 10 MuchMusic Video Awards. They are still considered one of Canada’s most popular bands and one of the few Canadian rock acts to achieve success in both the 1990s and 2000s. They hit the new $1.7 million Amphitheatre at the Seacliff Park Amphitheatre in Leamington on Saturday August 5.

Friday night will kick off the entire event with a bang as Hairball—The Band present a two-hour experience for fans of 1980s hair rock and metal. Three different vocalists pay homage to some of the biggest arena acts, including Van Halen, KISS, Motley Crue, Queen, Journey and Aerosmith.

“Not only do we have one of Canada’s hottest bands in Our Lady Peace, but we’re going to have the first ever Canadian show for Hairball,” says founder Joe Oswald, who is also the General Manager at CIBC’s Leamington branch. “Hairball has been trying to perform in Canada for the last 16 years and our show will be their first on Canadian soil, so that’s pretty exciting as well.”

Hogs For Hospice is a sanctioned event under the Leamington District Memorial Hospital Foundation and is a community-led event to support hospice and healthcare initiatives in the community. The festival includes a variety of different activities tailored to the motorcycle community, families, and riders’ and non-riders’ alike. After almost two years of planning, the first Hogs For Hospice rally was held in 2016, raising $50,000 with musical headliner Bret Michaels (of Poison fame) drawing thousands of excited fans.

“We wanted to create an event that actually injected money into the community rather than having to ask the community for money,” notes Oswald. “Most small towns have their own events, but people won’t travel any distance to come to these communities for a small local festival or fair. After some research, we found that there was no three-day motorcycle event anywhere around here. There are many in the southern United States, but nothing of any magnitude up here. That’s when we got together and crafted Hogs For Hospice.”

The event was started in 2016 by a dedicated group of local citizens who had a vision of creating a world-class event that would raise money to support a brand-new Hospice campus and health care centre in Leamington and the surrounding communities. The Hogs For Hospice board consists of Oswald, Donny Pacheco (Jose’s Bar & Grill), Benji Mastronardi (Double Diamond Farms), Tim Iles (Erie James Marketing), Brian Cornies and Scott Taylor (Speedprint), and Jeanine Lassaline Berglund (Economic Business Development Officer for the Municipality of Leamington). The board is enhanced by 226 Community Ambassadors, who assist with all aspects of the event and ensure everyone is welcomed to Leamington with open arms.

“We call our volunteers Community Ambassadors and we treat them like royalty because they treat our guests like royalty,” adds Oswald. “When someone comes to Hogs For Hospice they’re going to feel a warm welcome the second they arrive in town right up until the moment they leave to return home.”

Tickets for Our Lady Peace are $25 in advance and $30 at the door, with Hairball tickets priced at $15.

Friday August 4, 2017 – Starts at 5:00 pm