PUP Tapped as Guest Curators for Inaugural Second Summer Festival in Toronto

Toronto’s Second Summer Festival has announced PUP as its first-ever guest curators.

The Toronto band has cherry-picked nine Canadian acts to join over 100 already-announced acts performing in Toronto’s west end from September 24-26.

PUP’s picks are: High vis, Casper Skulls, Truck Violence, Klokwise, Status/Non-Status, Eucalyptus, Kid Sistr, Spirit Desire and Cam Kahin — the latter of which performed a Billboard Canada LIVE show at Horseshoe Tavern during this year’s edition of NXNE.

Acts will play across 13 venues in the city, including Horseshoe Tavern, the Baby G, Lee's Palace, The Garrison, Drake Underground, The Great Hall, Bovine Sex Club, Wavelength @ St. Anne's Parish, Mod Club and more.

It’s a natural fit for PUP to work with the festival, considering they’re veterans of the Toronto live scene. Most recently, the band released their fifth album, 2025’s Who Will Look After the Dogs? playing six hometown shows across multiple Toronto venues, notably Sneaky Dee's, Lee's Palace, The Concert Hall, Danforth Music Hall and HISTORY.

While PUP frontman, Stefan Babcock, shares that the band wasn’t able to perform at the festival’s inaugural edition, the group was “honoured to be asked” to put forward a selection of artists to perform.

“Some of these bands are well known, but most of them are just bands we really love who you may not know yet, but we think you should,” he says. “I'm glad this festival exists. I'm glad there is a place to showcase these incredible bands. And I'm glad these bands (especially the ones not from Ontario) will get to see what a great and supportive music city we have here in Toronto."

In May, Brendan McCarney and Claire Rosenbaum announced that they would be expanding their Second Summer festival into a three-day affair, following the success of its two one-day events in Toronto and Montreal last September.

"When we decided to have a guest curator it took me all of 30 seconds to land on the amazing fellas in PUP," explains McCarney, founder and artistic director of Second Summer Festival. "No choice exists that would better reflect the ethos of the festival, the creative and engaging artists who we've asked to play it, and frankly, the city of Toronto and its music scene. We couldn't appreciate the band and their selections more.”

Festival organizers shared that the three-day event is “about soul, community and putting independent talent front and centre,” calling it “anti-algorithm” and focused on discovering new music acts in-person.

PUP’s nine not-to-be-missed acts will perform alongside headliners cleopatrick, EKKSTACY, Militarie Gun, MIKE, Folk Bitch Trio, Dune Rats, Esprit, W.I.T.C.H., Clarion and DEADLETTER.

Absolute Treat, Art d'Ecco, Bells Larsen, cootie catcher, Tokyo Police Club’s Graham Wright, Housewife, Lia Pappas-Kemps, Loviet, madfolk, Mad Iris, Hollderado’s Menno Versteeg, Pale Blue Eyes, Pastel Blank, Pearly Drops, Penny & the Pits, Rachel Bobbitt, Ribbon Skirt, Shishi, Sloppy Jane, Softcult, Squirrel Flower, Starly Kind, sundayclub, Tallies, the Jump Cuts, Triples, Truck Violence, Twin Shadow and many more acts are slated to perform at the September festival.

Additionally, a boutique conference for emerging music industry executives and industry leaders will take place on September 24 & 25 at the Drake Hotel.