Kelowna-based noise rock outfit Down The Lees have released “This Is What It Feels Like,” a live concert film and accompanying album that captures a singular theatre performance in British Columbia’s Okanagan Valley. Funded by Creative BC, the project went from green light to stage in just three months — a sprint that forced the band to think deliberately about setlist, pacing, and how visuals would interact with the music.
The band — fronted by Laura Lee Schultz, who has previously worked with Steve Albini on 2019’s “Bury The Sun” and shared stages with Brutus, Pile, and KEN mode — has never been shy about tackling difficult subjects. War, homophobia, school shootings, climate anxiety. The theatre setting, though, offered something their usual bar and venue gigs in the Okanagan couldn’t.
“Most of the shows we play around the Okanagan are bars or venues where people are moving around, talking, drinking,” the band explains. “But the theatre created a completely different dynamic. People were seated, listening, really present. We were able to organize that set to fit the narrative. It felt more intimate for everyone.”
That narrative extended beyond the music itself. The band built all the backdrop videos using either public access clips or footage they filmed themselves, with imagery reflecting the themes in each song — climate collapse, war, school shootings. “We timed the visuals carefully so they would evolve with the songs rather than just sit behind us as decoration,” they say. “Like a theatre piece.”
Schultz frames the project as something rooted in a specific conviction about what live music does — and what’s been lost. “Since the pandemic, it’s been harder to leave our houses, staying online, staying disconnected. I feel that. And I wanted to push back against it,” she says. “There is nothing like live music. The community and the release. The feeling of leaving your problems at the door for a night and immersing yourself in something real.”
She’s also candid about what it means to make heavy, confrontational music in Kelowna — a conservative town not exactly known for nurturing loud, boundary-pushing art. “There isn’t a lot of support for loud, confrontational work — especially when it’s fronted by an aging queer woman who isn’t interested in softening her edges to fit,” Schultz says. “You can’t live here and not have it affect you.”
The local infrastructure for heavier and more experimental music is thin, the band acknowledges. Venues tend to lean toward safer programming. But there are people pushing — small promoters, DIY shows, artists supporting each other. They name Braze Magazine, Dunnenzies Pizza, Jackknife Brewing, and Ollie North Productions among the community players keeping things moving. BC’s broader underground, meanwhile, runs deep: PISS, Alien Boys, Dead Bob, Lakeside Amusement Park, Computer, Foxtooth, Norsu, ANCIIENTS, and plenty more.
Part of the motivation for documenting the show was simple awareness of time. “I’ve been around long enough to know moments like that don’t last forever,” Schultz says. “A room that feels open, engaged, willing — that’s not something I take lightly. I wanted proof it happened.”
Post-performance, the project became its own collaborative undertaking. The band worked through rounds of edits with Irisphere Entertainment, multiple mixes with Jesse Gander (Brutus, ANCIIENTS), and mastering by Blake Bickel (Bronson Arm). “It took a community of artists to bring this to life,” Schultz notes.
The release comes alongside limited-run merch — t-shirts, CDs, and a cassette tape co-released with Coup Sur Coup Records and Off White House Records, all available via Bandcamp.
Beyond Down The Lees, Schultz co-founded Girls To The Front Fest — a grassroots alternative rock festival in Western Canada created to put female, femme, non-binary, and 2SLGBTQIA+ artists at the front of the stage. Launched in Vernon in 2024 with co-founder Madeline Fraser (now the GM of The Pearl in Vancouver), the fest’s Vancouver edition takes place on March 14. The Kelowna edition has been postponed to next year — launching in a historically conservative tourist town proved more difficult than expected. More info at girlstothefrontfest.com.
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For Down The Lees, the film and live album feel more like a milestone than an ending. New material is in the works, and shows continue. The film streams at downthelees.com. Be sure to check it out.
