2021, But Make It 1999: Aqua, Ashanti, Ludacris and the Return of the Music Festival with 90's Nostalgia

In 2021, I travelled up to Toronto to document what felt, at the time, like a genuinely significant cultural moment: one of the first major music festivals to return after the long silence of COVID. I went with a camera, a notebook and the vague sense that live music itself had changed simply because we had been forced to live without it for so long.

That trip eventually became the first short documentary in My Forte, a music documentary series exploring the people, places and moments that give music its meaning beyond the stage. What I thought I was documenting was a ’90s nostalgia music festival. What I was really watching was thousands of people relearning how to gather, move, sing and be part of something together again.

I am a self-professed music festival junkie and a Tamagotchi-toting ’90s kid. After eighteen grueling, festival-free months during COVID, Vaughan’s three-day ’90s nostalgia blowout was a much-anticipated affair for me and my crew. Held on the northern edge of the Greater Toronto Area after a last-minute venue change, Improve Canada became the cherished home of three glorious days of everything ’90s. And by everything, I mean the music, the dancing, the energy, the techno-neon slap bracelets and bedazzled scrunchies, all atop haplessly dancing figures in high-tops and throwback athleisure - the kind with big, bold stripes, of course.

By the time the festival gates opened Friday afternoon, a buzzing line of obnoxious neon, teeny-tiny backpacks and bucket hats stretched around the building. A dual lineup of nostalgic fans, literally decked to the nines (as in the notorious 1999, of course) snaked around the grounds and out toward the street.

The venue was surprisingly well suited to an all-weather music festival, with options for COVID-friendly social distancing, a giant food truck courtyard, lavish VIP appointments; including a sky-high viewing deck with a covered seating level and a sizeable stage.

The weather largely held out for day one, when the Freestyle Fiesta kicked off with Toronto native and ’90s pop-dance legend Elissa, whose silky vocals and effortless stage presence got the energy flowing. Armando Music took things to another level with slick dance moves, velvet jackets and many a hip bump before Max-A-Million brought his ultra-smooth reggae rendition of Marvin Gaye’s “Sexual Healing” - dance style. Before we knew it, Fito Blanko’s unmatched energy had everyone, back row included, on their feet and dancing, whether they intended to or not.

’90s teen pop idol Joee, bespoke to the max in a crisp suit, tie and suspenders, arrived on stage with 1997’s hottest pop single, “Angel.” It took only a few verses and a wink over his slick aviators before the all-female front row had thoroughly lost their minds. Then there were the drinks. Flying Monkeys had somehow created a lineup of beers and seltzers almost as ridiculous as the festival itself, and naturally I felt obliged to investigate properly. Over the course of the weekend, I developed a particular fondness for the Juicy Ass IPA. Perhaps identifying a little too closely with the name after one or two. And the gloriously unhinged Pineapple-Mango-Orange Creamsicle Supersonic Puppy Dreams Craft Seltzer. I kid you not. That is the actual name. And frankly, anything with that many words had already won me over before the first sip. It remains, in my entirely unofficial but deeply committed opinion, one of the best-named seltzers in existence - and, irritatingly, also very good.

Between sets, I grabbed a poutine. This a Canadian delicacy, if you’re not already aware. I can only lament its relative absence for our non-Canadian friends reading this. But trust me when I say that gooey cheese curds, gravy and fries are the perfect fuel before finding yourself in the front row.

Finally, we were ready for the Latin splendour and irrepressible energy of an Elvis Crespo set. “Suavemente?” Hardly. But we count that as a good thing. A very good thing.

Day Two dawned sunny and bright, with early sets from Thea Austin of Snap! and the infamous Max-A-Million, back for another round. Before we knew it, we were ready to “Bring It All Back” in the golden early evening with a sunset set from S Club alumni S Club Party.

I count myself very lucky to have run into them backstage later that evening, where my 12-year-old self was delighted to discover they were exactly as charming as she had spent decades assuming her teenybopper heroes would be. More suspiciously, they also appeared to have aged approximately six minutes since their late-’90s touring years. Impressive genetics? Excellent lighting? Some sort of highly organised pop-group cryogenic programme? At this point, I’m not ruling anything out. Further investigation required.

Whigfield, clad in a technopunk robot bodysuit and a perfectly ginormous blonde ponytail, took the techno teenybopper energy to the next level with party anthem “Saturday Night” — fittingly, on a Saturday night. Did it sound better because of this meagre coincidence? Absolutely, yes. 2 Unlimited followed with hit after hit, and with the opening bars of “No Limit” and then “Get Ready for This,” not dancing was simply not an option. Which, as you can imagine, becomes a unique challenge when you happen to be in the photo pit attempting to take non-blurry pictures.

My inner ’90s kid was already more than satisfied, but next up was beloved Jenny from Ace of Base, who delivered a showstopping vocal performance, beautiful costume changes, amidst many a bouquet of roses tossed gracefully to adoring crowd members. 'Twas a setlist packed with the kind of hits that bypass memory entirely and go straight for the nervous system. The songs I had played to death on a gaudy yellow Walkman twenty years earlier, until the cassette tape quite literally gave up. My inner 13-year-old? ...beyond fangirling, even before I ran into her and Donny of the Vengaboys backstage. Did I manage to squeak out a hello? ...barely.

Next up, the Eurodance party bus did not so much arrive as crash cheerfully through the front gates wearing platform shoes. Boom — boom, boom, boom — and there were the Vengaboys, dressed in enough colour to make a packet of highlighters look restrained, launching themselves around the stage with the sort of enthusiasm usually associated with people who have just been told they’ll never have to pay tax again. Confetti and Vengabucks rained down at regular intervals as the crowd surrendered completely to a procession of late-’90s and early-2000s dance hits. There is something deeply humbling about discovering that your body still remembers every move to a song your adult brain had politely filed away twenty years ago. Apparently, some things are permanent.

My inner ’90s child had already been thoroughly overfed, but apparently the festival had no intention of showing restraint. We closed the evening with Aqua, who arrived carrying the considerable burden of being permanently associated with one of the most recognisable pop songs ever recorded and then proceeded to be far better than anyone had any right to expect. The set was dynamic, polished and, somewhat unexpectedly, genuinely moving. The vocals were superb. The production was enormous. And yes, “Barbie Girl” still caused several thousand adults to lose all sense of dignity at exactly the same moment. I sang along to every word, which was mildly alarming considering I can no longer remember where I put my keys most mornings.

Sunday, the third and final day of this very committed exercise in collective nostalgia, shifted into Rapcity mode. Max-A-Million returned, joined by Canadian rap legend Choclair, before Karl Wolf appeared with an energetic dance rendition of “Africa,” big beats and enough stage presence to wake anybody still recovering from Saturday night. Then came Kardinal Offishall, because apparently Sunday was not interested in easing anyone gently toward the end of the weekend.

The weather, meanwhile, had other plans. What began as an inconvenient mist rapidly developed into the sort of rain usually reserved for biblical illustrations. After a brief delay, Ashanti took the stage and carried on as though several tonnes of water were not currently falling out of the sky. She moved through hit after hit with complete composure, slick choreography and the kind of calm that suggested weather was simply someone else’s administrative problem. Then, naturally, the rain intensified during “Rain on Me.” Coincidence? Perhaps. But at that point, nobody was in the mood to rule out sorcery.

Ja Rule was unfortunately unable to make the Sunday sub-headlining set because of COVID-related border issues, which left a rather conspicuous hole in the evening. Ludacris, however, did make it. Despite flight delays, weather delays, minor flooding, lack of waterproofing and what I can only assume was a growing list of reasons any sensible person might have turned around and gone home.

Instead, he arrived near midnight and closed the festival in the pouring rain.

And somehow, that made it better.

There is a particular kind of madness involved in standing soaked to the skin with thousands of strangers, long past the point when any reasonable adult should have gone to bed, yelling along to songs you first heard decades earlier. But there was also something unexpectedly beautiful about it. After eighteen months of COVID-cancelled plans, empty venues and distance from one another, here we all were again; drenched, exhausted, slightly ridiculous and completely present.

There was not a dry eye in the house.

Admittedly, there was not a dry human either.

Even now, the sheer scale of what this festival managed to pull off feels slightly improbable. After multiple postponements, shifting restrictions and all the logistical gymnastics that came with staging a major event in 2021, a relatively small crew in Vaughan somehow assembled a lineup that read like someone had been handed control of a very expensive ’90s fever dream.

I’ve since gotten to know some of the people behind it, and if the weekend itself was powered by nostalgia, the machinery underneath it was pure determination. Events of this size are never simple, but this one arrived carrying the additional weight of a world still learning how to gather again. And somehow, it worked.

Judging by the crowd, I wasn’t the only one who felt it. There was a kind of collective gratitude in the air, somewhere between disbelief and joy, that this strange, oversized, gloriously nostalgic neon thing was happening at all.

It was ambitious, slightly mad, and entirely worth it.

Final thoughts, from 2026:

If a festival, a city, a mountain, a strange little detour or a completely impractical idea makes you hesitate because it feels too far, too loud, too expensive, too inconvenient, too unlike your usual life? ...pay attention to that hesitation.

Maybe the better question isn’t whether something is “you.” Maybe it’s whether you’ve become too comfortable with the version of yourself you already know. Or the one you show the world while hiding the little things you kinda always wanted to try.

Not every impulse deserves to be followed. But some of the most meaningful experiences begin exactly where your established sense of self starts to feel a little restrictive.

Go because it interests you. Go because it scares you slightly. Go because you might come back knowing something you didn’t before.

Possibly about the world, possibly about yourself.