Since the dawn of The Overcast, St. John’s has consistently called Lawnya Vawnya “The Best Music Festival on the Avalon.” This year’s festival runs May 4th-8th, and the playlist below offers a glimpse at 16 visiting bands. Dig in, one of the best things about a festival is discovering new music.

Maybe it’ll help you make some judgment calls on the schedule, because the worst thing about a festival is you can’t be everywhere at once. In addition to the bands below, there’s a broad swath of the best local bands in town playing the festival as well, and LV6 is also peppered with readings here and there. There’s even an epic double reunion show featuring local heroes Trailer Camp & Roundelay (Saturday night at The Rockhouse, with Falk Palms).

Five Fun Facts about People Playing Lawnya Vawnya 2016

1.) You might not have heard of Weird Lines yet, but you know them: it’s a collaboration between CL McLaughlin, Julie Doiron, and Jon McKiel, among others. McKiel closed out Lawnya Vawnya 2015 and is back already with Weird Lines (Wednesday night), and for a special performance with Whoop-Szo at The Rose on Saturday night.

2.) Julie Doiron’s old band Eric’s Trip was the first Canadian band signed by Sub Pop Records in The States; and she herself, as a solo artist, is the first Canadian to have been signed to JagJaguwar Records in The States too.

3.) Heat Vision might be a New Brunswick Band, but it’s fronted by Steve Haley, a prolific and long-standing songwriter from Newfoundland, best known for his solo albums, and the bands The Human Soundtrack (NL), and, Banded Stilts (NB).

4.) To get in a creative space before recording their acclaimed album Deep in the Iris, the bandmates in Braids spent time in a series of mountain retreats in Arizona, Vermont, and upstate New York, in order to “shed the fabric of their day to day relationships, [and be] bare and vulnerable before one another.”

5.) If you’re attending this festival, you’re familiar with The Burning Hell. On their 2015 album of duets, Ariel and Mathias cover a song by Blimp Rock called “The Love That Treats You Right,” which Mathias told The Overcast is his favourite breakup song ever.