New Brunswickers well-represented at East Coast Music Awards

With the East Coast Music Awards celebrating three decades of success, a few New Brunswickers were able to snag some of the gala's top awards on the regional stage.

Thursday evening was the award show in Halifax, and while Les Paens' Jean Surette, executive director of Music NB, wasn't expecting the band to win group recording of the year, he soon found himself underneath the stage lights.

"We were stunned," he told Information Morning Moncton. "Looking at the nominees, it was a category with a lot of nominees."

"The Eastern Pointers I mean, they won a Juno for that album."

The band was so unprepared to win, he said, the bass player wasn't even in the room when the group's name was called.

"That minute he stepped out, we went out on stage," Surette said.

"He had to celebrate with us after."

Surette said the showwas, "top notch" in terms of visuals and the bands that played.

Other New Brunswickers winners

Two other musical acts from the province were able to win big.

• Measha Brueggergosman,Fredericton, won theBucky Adams Memorial Award
• Rap collective City Natives, which has members from both New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, was named Indigenous artist of the year.

Other New Brunswick bands were out in force too, Surette said, includingEdmundston's Spoutnique and Fredericton's Hypochondriacs.

For many of the province's groups and solo performers, this will be the first East Coast Music Awards. And it's not just new artists making an impact.

"I see New Brunswickers on the export stages," Surettesaid. "That meansnot everyone can play on that stage. You need international touring experience, management.

"I'm seeing more and more New Brunswickers on that stage."

This year's awards are being held in Halifax and run until Sunday.