It began with the South Okanagan's biggest parade and finished with an evening of killer concerts at Okanagan Lake Park.
And if you took in everything offered during Saturday of the 2025 Penticton Peach Festival, you'd likely cloned yourself in advance.
PentictonNow started its day early, parking near the SOEC to avoid the inevitable gridlock, and hiking a kilometer and a half to the key parade intersection of Winnipeg Street and Lakeshore Drive.
It ultimately took nearly two hours for the procesison to make its way past our spot, and it didn't disappoint.
For a comparatively small city like Penticton, the annual Fest parade is a doozie.
As is often the case, some of the most outwardly impressive entries came from our neighbours to the south.
Floats like that of Deer Park, Washington, the Spokane Lilac Festival and Portland's Royal Rosarians were straight-up stunning.
As was the always sensational (and sensationally gigantic) Seattle Schools All City Band.
But there was plenty of local awesomeness too.
Like the crazily acrobatic kids from Springers Gymnastics. And the slighlty less adventurous but more musically inclined Falun Dafa contingent.
Other standout regional entries included floats from the Phillipines, SOS Pride and Peach Fest itself.
And we can't forget the numerous community and service groups who always make the Penticton parade scene.
The event done, we took a siesta and headed back mid-afternoon to the Peach Fest epicentre of Okanagan Lake Park.
We arrived just in time to witness Okanagan party/rock band Cobra Radio doing its thing.
We knew nothing about these guys coming in, but fell for them immediately.
A hard working band that knows how to read an audience and doesn't forget to have fun, the Cobras were a perfect pre-dinner tonic.
How many drumsticks did vocalist Joey Sather toss into the crowd? Just enough.
Up next was one of the highlights of the entire Festival - Penticton's own Balance School of Performing Arts.
Energetic, dedicated and polished beyond their years, the Balance kids wowed a big crowd that seemingly reacted to their every move.
And some of those moves were spectacular.
Check out the photos.
Next it was back to the Saturday diet of rock and roll with Kelowna's Crush XO.
Slightly harder-edged than Cobra, Crush XO played loud and hard for the duration of its one-hour set and effectively primed the headbangers in the audience for Saturday evening's headliners, Econoline Crush and Sloan.
Note: Singer Shalisa Liesch can wail with the best of them.
Celebrated Penticton rope-jumpers Black Window Rope Spinners followed, though we caught their opening night performace (check out our Peach Fest Day One summary here) and opted instead to cruise down the road to Rotary Park to watch other, braver people than us hop aboard amusement rides.
The place was packed and splendidly illuminated and so were all the rides. It was heaven for the thrill-seeker crowd.
All of the above led up to our final appointment of the night, with platinum-selling Vancouver alternative/nu-metal band Econoline Crush.
And yes, that meant we saw two bands back to back with "Crush" in the name.
The Econoline variety was...loud. It was also heavy, abrasive and a little dangerous.
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Just like rock's supposed to be.
And singer Trevor Hurst simply owned the crowd. A natural showman, Hurst was the third vocalist in a row that seemed so perfectly at home on the big stage.
Indeed, the entire band smashed their way through a set that left the crowd screaming for more.
We hope it's not the last time we catch an Econline Crush show.
Candian rock royalty Sloan ended the Saturday rock-centric Peach Fest activities, but we weren't there to see them.
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No offense. It was a long day. A long, good day.
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Now it's only a year to the next Peach Fest.
