Back in Montreal

I caught the train out of Kingston on Sunday morning. "Renaissance equipment" I think they called it, meaning more modern I guess. True enough I suppose, it seemed a bit more modern looking than the train I was on to Kingston. The seats were fairly comfortable, great at reclining, with some storage underneath for my backpack, but with hardly any legroom! Plus they did away with space for luggage so you had to check it in and then pick it up at baggage claim upon arrival. Still, an enjoyable ride. I think I'm starting to prefer trains to aircraft. After checking in to my hotel I wandered up and down St. Catherine street and found out that it was the last night of FrancoFolie, a set of free outdoor concerts showcasing Francofone talent (or lack thereof :) Here are the first two acts I saw—the first one was ok, the second was more funny (to me) than anything else. It was this muscle-building, long-haired metal band, composed of a guy playing a kind of electronic contra-bass (like a standup bass, but being electronic it was this skinny thing hanging off his shoulder), guitar, and drums. After the first song the shirt went off and off he went twirling his head groaning out Metallica-like grunts. In French! About the only things I managed to catch was the swearing in between numbers, e.g., all my favorites including Hostie, Chalice, and of course Tabernacle! I don't know what prompted him to issue these blasphemes, but it was quintessential Quebecois. Actually I rather enjoyed this bit, not so much the music. Occasionally though the drummer would show off his double-footed technique, which was cool.

The next three acts consisted of a rap group ("The first rap duo out of Montreal!" I was told by a guy helping staff the event earlier in the afternoon), some folk-like ensemble in the mall, and this kind of Brazilian/French fusion band. The rap act appeared to be very popular. I once again had no clue as to what they were rapping/complaining about, but it seemed angst-ridden (much like the metal appeared to have been), and the audience seemed to enjoy it (with the exception of the mall act, all outside acts were accompanied by whiffs of various herbs being smoked by the crowd—gotta love it, Canada is way less uptight than the US of A). The mall act was actually pretty good. It lacked a drummer, instead the percussionist sat on some kind of box that acted as bass and snare to fairly good effect. They would include various instruments including some Indian-looking sittar type thing, a tuba, sax, etc., etc. Anyway, they sounded pretty good with the only crappy number being one where the sax player sang in "phonetic English" as I believe he said he was attempting to due. Well, it was just plain mockery of English, he should have stuck to singing in French which he did much better. The Brazilian act was possibly the highlight of the evening, particularly the drummer. She sang in Portugese but spoke French in between numbers. At one point the drummer launched into this kind of fast-paced, instrumental percussion number evoking visions of Rio's Carnivale (which I've never experienced but imagined it to sound something like what the drummer was doing). I was quite envious of his rolling technique. How the heck did he manage to play that with such good pace and clarity? The last act I saw was these two Francofone girls doing rap yet again. Meh. About the only good thing about this last venue was that I could find a seat on which I could munch on my street-vendor hot dog and $5 beer. Afterwards I caught the Metro home, where I realized that AC/DC just finished playing (judging by the hordes of people with AC/DC t-shirts and red devil horns worn on the head). I stayed at the W, a kind of swanky hotel with its own night club that I was told about a couple of times. Very trendy, and a bit pricey ($10 Coronas, can you believe that?). Still, it was enjoyable to a certain extent except for this annoying club song that I keep hearing here and there: "My dream is to fly over the rainbow so high". Ugh, I can't stand that song, but every time it comes on in these "clacker bars" invariably all the clackers start singing it and flinging their arms up in the air. It's kind of sickening and yet curiously amusing :) It appears that I'm a member of the Starwood hotels group which owns/runs the W and as a perk I had late checkout (4pm). I took advantage by sleeping in till about 10am and then made my way leisurely to the airport where I now sit chewing up bandwidth writing up last night's escapades.