In the dark, Still Dark persevered. Head inside with us.

When The Underground finally opened its doors after 10pm on Thursday – hours later than planned following a power outage across Yellowknife – ticket holders lined up right away.

Some had waited in their cars in nearby parking lots for the city’s second Still Dark Festival to begin.

Having made it inside three hours after the scheduled start time of 7:30pm, Benjamin Karstad said he would have waited another three hours to see high-energy bands HYFY and Upper Mall Rats play.

“It blew my expectations out of the water,” he said.

“It filled up a little bit slowly and there were some late arrivals, but eventually it reached a critical mass and it got really, really exciting. And both of the bands were amazing.”

Artistic director Taylor Shephard was worried when the outage occurred, since a lot of logistics went into the three-day festival, but he was grateful it all worked out.

“We want to make sure we can still put on an event that’s safe for our festivalgoers to go to,” he said.

Shephard said organizers were discussing the outage and its impact for hours until making the last-minute call to go ahead with Thursday’s performances and see who showed up.

“We were really stoked and pleasantly surprised about who actually arrived, so it was a great turnout,” he said.

“We’re beyond stoked about our loyal… I don’t know, we haven’t come up with a name for what our fans are – but we’re stewing on it.”

‘We’re electric’

HYFY’s fans know a thing or two about persevering despite disasters.

Last summer, at Folk on the Rocks’ Friday night Warm the Rocks show, HYFY had just played the last note of their set when a lightning storm shut down the remainder of the night.

“I’m not saying there’s a curse but two for two is pretty, pretty weird. We’re still gonna work with them, because we love them,” Shephard joked.

“What can I say? We’re electric,” HYFY singer Cat McGurk countered.

McGurk said members of HYFY and Upper Mall Rats sat in their living room by candlelight, eating snacks and waiting for the go or no-go decision prior to the show.

“When we heard that the power was coming on downtown, we actually drove downtown and just sat in our vehicles and waited,” McGurk said. (The Underground was among the last buildings in the city to get power back.)

Vishwaa Ramakrishnan, who will play with Ben Cornel on Friday and Saturday, thinks Yellowknifers recognize the need to support the local music scene despite the challenges.

“It would have been easy for everyone to say, OK, it’s late. We’re going home, right? We’re two hours behind schedule. We should be in bed by now,” he said.

“But I think out here we recognize – especially as musicians supporting musicians, like myself – if we don’t show up and support our music community, nobody else will. We know that in the dark of night, this is what keeps our community going.”

Still Dark continues through the weekend.