When Nikita Afonso plays the Errington War Memorial Hall on Saturday, April 9, it will be her first show on Vancouver Island.
“I’ve been wanting to play there for years,” she said. “I am so excited to finally do so.”
Originally from Penticton, Afonso moved to the Lower Mainland in 2014 and currently resides in Richmond.
Her Errington show, which starts at 8 p.m. will consist of two 45-minute sets with a break in-between.
“We’re going to be doing a mixture of cover songs as well as original material,” she said, and added they haven’t had the opportunity to play much original music lately.
Saturday’s performance will also include two new singles; Afonso’s ‘Jokers’ and ‘The Pancake Song’.
“(‘The Pancake Song’) is one of my favourite ones to perform because it’s a happy-go-lucky feel good song.”
Accompanying Afonso on stage will be Adrian Emond on guitar, Trent Otter on drums and Yamil Chain Hadded on bass guitar.
Afonso has played with Emond for approximately eight years since they first met in Nelson while attending Selkirk College for its contemporary music and technology diploma program. He was one of the first guitarists she played with since she started the program and plans to keep playing with “the whole crew” for the foreseeable future.
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In 2021, Afonso won the International Portuguese Music Awards Song of the Year for her song ‘I Don’t think I’m doing this right’ which was co-performed and produced with her friend Ty Falcoa.
As a first generation Canadian, last year was not the first win from the Portuguese Music Awards, as Afonso also won Best Music Video in 2018, and Best New Artist in 2017.
“In 2017, the International Portuguese Music Awards asked me to perform as a nominee for new artists of the year… Essentially what it is – they take two artists and you perform and then at the end of the night, they choose one of you to win the award. So in 2017 I won that, and then for the last four years or so, I was nominated for a few other awards as well,” she said.
She describes her own flair of music as pop, with a bit of country.
“The first CD I ever released, I was in Grade 12. And that was primarily country. I loved country music. I still do… But nowadays, I would definitely say I’m primarily pop for my original music with a slight country influence in my voice,” she said.
“It’s definitely noticeable more in the acoustic sets that I do… It’s funny because I usually call myself pop, but a lot of people still come up to me and ask if I’m a country fan or used to sing country because they can still hear it in my voice.”
Tickets for Afonso’s Saturday show can be purchased online from the Errington War Memorial Hall website: www.erringtonhall.ca.