CHCH-TV and CHEK add Death From Above 1979, Bedouin Soundclash and Basia Bulat to The Countdown to 2025 lineup

CHCH-TV and CHEK have added three electrifying Canadian artists to the lineup for their third annual live New Year’s Eve special, The Countdown to 2025: Dance punk duo Death From Above 1979, indie/reggae royalty Bedouin Soundclash, and folk singer/songwriter Basia Bulat.

Following the success of last year’s broadcast—watched by 600,000 viewers across Canada and ranked the second-most-viewed New Year’s Eve special of 2024—The Countdown to 2025 aims to raise the bar once again. Filmed live in front of a studio audience and hosted by award-winning Canadian media personality George Stroumboulopoulos, the show will be an engaging retrospective of the past year. Live performances by the bands will bring an extra layer of dynamic excitement and energy to ring in the new year.

Death From Above 1979, the boundary pushing musical alliance created by Sebastien Grainger and Jesse F. Keeler, roared out of Toronto with the uncompromising one-two punch of 2002’s fuzz-bomb EP Heads Up and 2004’s epochal debut album You’re a Woman, I’m a Machine. Their follow up LP, The Physical World, came 10 years later in 2014 (don’t ask!), followed by Outrage! Is Now in 2017 and finally Is 4 Lovers in 2021. Their live show is a world class high sound-pressure smash fest and that hasn’t seemed to lose “that thing” after 20+ years.

Joining them is Canadian indie rock and reggae royalty Bedouin Soundclash, back better than ever to continue the next chapter in their singular genre-defying career – a career that has seen them celebrated at home and abroad with JUNO awards, Top 10 radio hits, and international tours with No Doubt, Ben Harper, The Interrupters, and Thievery Corporation. This year Bedouin Soundclash returns with a brand new album titled ‘We Will Meet in a Hurricane’, out now on Dine Alone Records.

Completing the Canadian all-star trio is Basia Bulat, a folk singer/songwriter whose new album ‘Basia’s Palace’ is like a time-travel score, with Bulat going back into the past to shape the events of the future. After years of releasing records where live performance came first—culminating in 2022’s ‘The Garden’, which reimagined some of her best-loved songs with help from a string quartet—the singer-songwriter wanted to express herself in a completely different way, composing with MIDI instead of piano or guitar. She found herself moving through a dreamworld of whispers, synths, early Eurovision tunes–and her great uncle’s gauzy Maryla Rodowicz and Marek Grechuta LPs.

At-home viewers can watch The Countdown to 2025 on Tuesday, December 31, 2024. CHCH-TV will carry the special broadcast live for an Ontario audience at 11:10 P.M. ET, on conventional TV and streaming at chch.com and YouTube. CHEK will carry the special broadcast for the BC audience at both 8:10 P.M. PT and 11:10 P.M. PT, through conventional TV and streaming on CHEK+.