M pour Montreal presents: Martha Wainwright + Groenland

Martha Wainwright

Rialto

November 16 2016

Martha was the opening act of M pour Montreal festival this year.

The festival was created to help our local talent shine in front of promoters from all around the globe.

Martha is a one of a kind artist that I love to go listen to, but mostly watch because she is quite the entertainer.

She is really funny, talented, great at storytelling, quite a good musician, goofy, but she also looks like she has ADHD.

It is a great part of her charm that at every show she forgets the lyrics to her songs or how they start or forgets parts of them while playing. She usually asks someone or restarts the song. She has a great sense of derision about it and it is great to watch her for that alone.

Since the festival is all about promoting artists so they can shine elsewhere, i wonder how promoters see Martha when she cant even finish or start her own songs...

But I really like her and always up to see her shows when she is around.

That night Martha was joined on stage by a piano player, a stand-up bassist and her cousin for some songs.

She showed up dressed to impress in a ... jumpsuit!

During the set she played a mix of new songs, covers and few older songs.

On Traveller, she was joined by her cousin while her pianist was playing instruments at the same time.

She goes on to play a weird song, but with her usual craziness it just works out great.

The next song is the first time she plays it live and the first time playing it with the bassist so it ends up magical obviously with a Martha touch.

She played a song for Safia Nolin which is a cover of a Gerry Boulet song and singing it with a charming french quebecois accent to accentuate that it is a Gerry song. 

It is funny and great to hear.

While playing the song, Martha asks forgiveness when she misses a few chords, but it doesnt matter to her and she continues to play nonetheless.

She then speaks to the crowd in her usual half French half English sentences and mentions it in the middle of it all which makes it more funny to everyone.

Her next song is one of those songs that she just recorded, but cant remember how it starts.

She argues a few minutes with her pianist and the laugh about it.

"Franci" was really great live with an intense guitar riff mixed with her great voice.

It doesnt matter that she missed a few beats and lyrics because it is that good.

"So Down" is also really good, played with an electric guitar and since the song is played really fast with a lot of beats it feels fresh since it is a departure from most of what Martha usually plays.

The synths also add a lot to the song mixed with the different tempo of the song which goes fast then slow and starts again strong.

She wanted to play "Francis" which is a new song written by her brother Rufus, but she couldnt remember the lyrics.

She asks her entourage to see if anyone printed out the lyrics, but no one did..."fuck!"

She decided to try and improvise if needs be...so of course she couldnt remember the lyrics and does her improvisation and ends the song quickly with super fake lyrics. 

Great little moment with the crowd because of this.

After a few other songs, she did an encore which meant it was almost time to go unfortunately.

She sang a Leonard Cohen song with lyrics on a piece of paper to end the festivities.

Great show and looking forward to her next one in April!

Setlist:

 

Groenland

Rialto

November 16 2016

I like Groenland and i've seen them once at Osheaga and also opening for another band not long ago.

The only difference that night was that everyone was sitting on chairs at the Rialto...

You might think it's not a big deal, but it is since the group offers an energetic electro/jazz/pop performance that you need to dance too to really appreciate fully.

This show is also used to promote them worldwide as part of M pour Montreal.

The performance was really good and energetic.

On stage were quite a few musicians including a cello player, violinist, someone on the synths, a bassist, drummer and the singer.

We heard quite a lot of good songs that could ignite some great parties and the crowd was there to clap along to the beats.

The singer had a great deep voice and the bassist was having quite a good time jumping around.

Overall good show and great opener band for Martha.

Exploratory day: Bjork Dj Set

Bjork (Dj set)

October 26 2016

Cirque Eloise

The Red Bull Music Academy organised this event where Bjork was going to do a Dj set for 3 hours over 2 days in a very small venue in old port Montreal.


I was going to go to this event for a few reasons:
-I've been following Bjork since the Sugarcubes
-Bjork has been creating such a wide palette of music
-I tought i would discover a lot of new music
-i was going to a club event to dance all night



Needless to say that Bjork was quiet most of the night and letting her music make statements about herself. She was masked and playing in a forest setting from a small corner of the room which was the weirdest aspect of the night.



I was going to the first set of the festival so i didnt know what to expect at all.

The show started with 20 minutes of birds chirping and singing then finally followed some soft singing and really atmospheric.


Throughout the night as an effort to be able to listen to some of this stuff later i was trying to Shazzam the songs which tended to be more difficult than i had expected...



At some point she started to have some songs with more beats and thats when she started dancing.
Those beats werent easy to dance to for anyone in the room other than Bjork who seemed to be really into it. I guess you really had to be in her head to understand.

After more than an hour, some beats were normal enough to be able to start dancing for a bit until it all switched to really experimental music.
Bjork was combining a lot of samples to create new music throughout the event like a real dj would do and thats part of what i expected from the night.



As time went, she played song with more rhythm and more played some pop songs such as Ariane Grande which was a big surprise and a big departure from everything that we came to expect from the evening or Bjork.



The last half hour of the show when most people had gone, she started playing whole songs with not a lot of sampling but probably just what she wanted to hear.

She left by waving her hand goodbye and she never said a word the whole set hidden behind her cat mask.



That night she played 3 hours of music fetching from all spheres of music from electro, industrial sonority, classical music, minimalism, Pakistan soufis singing, hindouist traditional, african mandingue percussions, indie pop and R&B.


Too bad for Bjork that a good part of the crowd couldnt really get into the music but it was good to hear what she was inspired by.
The crowd dispersed quite early around 11pm with only few left when she "said" goodbye at 12:03am.





Shazzamed:

-shara worden "death speaks no1"

-robbie basho. "Salangadou"

-peder Mannerfelt "limits to growth"

-Arca "snakes"

-serpentwithfeet "four ethers"

-Rahsaan Roland Kirk "inflated tear"

-Sampha "plastic 10c"

-Mala "kotos"

-w0rm "b612"

-compton white "mainland"

-lanark artefax "virtual bodihes"

-odeko "tsundoku"

-arca "vanity"

-teengirl fantasy "lung"

-abida parveen "aaj rang hai"

-aby ngana diop "ndadje"

-anohni "4 degrees"

- cadenza feat avelino "no drama"

-anohni "obama"

-pygmies ""nzombi"

-ariane grande "into you"

-nao "bad blood"

-usha uthup "i will survive (party cover)"

-jeremih "planes","oui"

-reshma "lambi judai"

Night Of Improvised Round Robin Duets

RBMA: Round Robin



Plaza St-Hubert, Montreal

October 18 2016

The Red Bull Music Academy organised a special night of "Round Robin" improvised music.

The concept was pretty interesting and consisted of many musicians coming together 2 at a time and improvising together for 5 minutes then 1 left and another entered to continue for 5 more minutes.

Each musician played 10 minutes overall in different styles to create some new, hopefully good and exciting for them and the crowd watching them.

The order of musicians was chosen at random with some minor tweaks and for the most part the result was really interesting.

It didn't start really great and it must have been hard to start the show when Braid's drummer, Austin Tufts, played alone for 5 minutes until someone else joined in, but even then the combination was odd, they were far away and the 2nd musician never even looked at the poor drummer. I'm not sure that starting with a drummer like him was the problem or that it would have been hard for anybody to start, but I was hopeful that the remainder of the night would get better.

After a few weird combinations, Foxtrott and the guitar player Sandro Perri really upped the standard and it was starting to get interesting at last.

Foxtrott was joined by a jazz player and that was really interesting from the get go.

So like I was saying before with the drummer, Austin, the strangest thing with the way the stage was set is that everyone seemed so far away from each other with no direct eye contact line possible and sometimes the musicians didn't even try to look at each other.

The 2nd drummer of the night, Greg Fox. came on while Thundercat was playing and he really energized the set and it was a great moment. It felt that this jazz session was really thrilling. They looked at each other and played perfectly well together.

Kelsey Lu, cello player, came on and started while the previous duo was still playing and the guitar player extended his stay to play with her quite a bit until he was told to move on. Thundercat really seemed to enjoy the few minutes in this trio. Thundercat tried to harmonize with the Kelsey as much as he could.

Kelsey started to vocalize during the song and it was magnificent. She has quite a voice.

Kelsey continued with Mauro Pezzente on the bass and it was good as well.

We started to hear some electro when Mauro and Stefan Schneider played together which was good as well.

When Craig Pedersen entered the stage with his trumpet it was quite special. I didn't understand how, but he was using only the pistons on the trumpet to make sounds without blowing in for a few minutes. Stefan stopped hitting his drum with sticks, but started making noises by rubbing objects on his drums.

At this point, we could hear people talk loudly from the balcony and the bar which was annoying since the music wasn't loud at this point and refined.

Young Paris joined the party and started rapping and interacting with the crowd for the first time of the night. He asked the crowd to clap at different speeds and timing and continued singing.

Socalled joined the fun after this with Young Paris and they created really good beats for each other.

"So horny tonight" was Socalled lyrics during this beat.

Socalled was joined by Rebecca Foon on the cello and he was happy about it.

Socalled spoke a lot and screamed in excitement to be present at this even while playing with Rebecca.

When Rebecca started with her cello, it obviously changed the tone of the some and it was more atmospheric and electro.

Chilly Gonzales joined the stage and it started to be really fun. I like Chilly Gonzales a lot so I was really happy that he was added to the bill at the last minute and he ended the night which was amazing.

Socalled and Gonzales played together on the same synthetizer for a while until he left and stayed with Rebecca Foon.

Chilly was trying to really create something with the cello player. We could see his hands playing piano on the big screen and he his so smooth playing his instrument it is nice to see up close.

d'Eon joined Gonzales but since his tech wasn't working for a while it was up to Chilly to entertain us by himself. It was not so hard let's just say that.

He seemed to really enjoy his presence on stage and having a lot of fun and laughs with d'Eon once they started together.

d'Eon was playing in high pitch notes at first it was really far from what Gonzales was doing, but Gonzales changed to get closer to d'Eon. It was like an opera at that point.

They work making theatricals and it was so funny and awesome.



 

 

Chilly left, d'Eon was all alone for a few minutes, but finished earlier than expected because some parts of his tech was still not functioning properly so it ended the night like this.

 

 

Fun and interesting night to discover musicians jamming together and creating something for only 1 night!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Preoccupations (aka Vietcong)

Preoccupations (aka Vietcong)

Fairmount Theatre

Montreal

October 11, 2016

I wanted to see this band last year when they were touring as Vietcong, but I missed all their shows.

This time I was going and hoping to see some old songs being played as well.

I was tired and a little sick that night so it might have altered my perception of the show...

The opening band was great, we could hear really well the music and the singer's voice.

When Preoccupations started, it was not the case anymore...the singer's voice we couldn't hear and was kind of muffled which was quite annoying to me.

So the first song was not impressive because of that.

The second songs had a great rhythm to it and the performance was enhanced with the guitar player performing on his knees and that was great to watch!

I felt that throughout the set, the performance was really different/shaky.

Some of the songs they played were more instrumental, but there were no cohesion between the musicians which made them flat.

Other times, the guitar player was on the synths and those portions of songs were lacking energy and it was not as interesting and we couldn't hear so well the synths in some portions. During those segments there were some interesting loops and beats.

Overall the band his way better when they play fast and energy driven songs.

The singer was really laid back, not taking this seriously really.

They made up a set list on the spot, arguing all the time what to play so the guitar player was never ready to play always tuning or changing his guitar because of the lack of organisation.

At the end of the show, I went in the back of the room and the voice seemed slightly better.

So not the best performance I've seen in this venue.

Setlist:

1. Anxiety
2. Silhouettes
3. March of Progress
4. Select Your Drone
5. Continental Shelf  
6. Memory
7. Degraded
8. Monotony 
9. Zodiac 
10. Stimulation
11. Death


Kanye West - what to expect?

Kanye West

Bell Centre, Montreal

September 02 2016

When I decided to buy this ticket to the show, I didn't know what to expect.

 I am not the biggest fan of his whole discography, but I like most of the songs I heard.

I am certainly not the biggest fan of how he acts and talks publicly, but he is quite a phenomenon.

I like when he raps, but would he do that or only talk shit and do stupid things?

I wanted to see which side of him was going to be playing during that concert.

I wanted to come back from it and be able to tell others of what happened...

To my surprise the show went really well and he was there as a performer!

The show started with Kanye singing from the shadows hidden backstage and went on throughout the first song.

Then some lights were turned on under a floating platform(only lights around), so people under the platform started to dance intensely it was perceived as if it was their show, their moment, but we still couldn't see Kanye.

At some point, he shows up on the platform being illuminated from another ring of light above the platform.

The platform started moving and wherever it went, people took it on themselves to dance as hard as they could during this time. It was their cue to dance as much as they could. It was a dance club!

Kanye was rapping and dancing on the platform and it was great to hear and see.

It surprised me to see that EVERYONE was singing the lyrics of every songs he played.

Lights on the platform were changing colors and highlighting different parts of the crowd then back on Kanye.

Security people were on the edge it seemed since they usually have a set stage in front, but that day was way different with a suspended stage floating around the whole arena.

I saw some security guard get really aggressive towards people doing anything that could get close to the stage or Kanye while he was on the edge of the platform and they got head to head talks!

Intense I would say.

At some points lights different lights were sweeping all over the floor.

The lights structure over the main platform was tilting in weird angles to highlight different space it was impressive.

Then Kanye sang a cappela one of the song and it was great.

He started directing more and more his MC to stop the music so he could sing alone, start songs over to start from the beginning if he missed a beat or wanted the crowd to interact or for him to rap.

If the crowd wasn't dancing hard enough for him, he restarted the song.

It was nice to see that he cared.

People kept jumping and dancing after this.

He played a lot of songs and a lot of good material!

SetList

1.Father Stretch My Hands Pt. 1

2. Pt. 2

3. Famous
4. Pop Style (Drake cover) 
5. THat Part(ScHoolboy Q cover) 

6. Facts
7. Mercy
8. I Don't Like (Chief Keef cover) 
9. All Day
10. Black Skinhead
11. Niggas in Paris (Jay-Z & Kanye West cover) 
12. Can't Tell Me Nothing

13. Power
14. Blood on the Leaves

15. Freestyle 4

16. Jesus Walks
17. Flashing Lights

18. Highlights
19. Feedback
20. Wolves

21. Heartless

22. Runaway

23. Only One
24. 30 Hours

25. I Love Kanye
26. Waves

27. Gold Digger

28. Touch the Sky

29. All of the Lights

30. Good Life
31. Stronger
32. Fade
33. Ultralight Beam


Prophets of Rage (Rage Against the Machine + Public Enemy + Cypress Hill)

Prophets of Rage

Bell Center

Montreal

Aug 23 2016

Rage Against the Machine (minus de la Rocha), B-Real from Cypress Hill and Chuck D and DJ Lord from Public Enemy formed a new supergroup called Prophets of Rage.

The Prophets are basically playing a best of version of their bands.

I had never seen Rage Against the Machine live and this would be the closest I will probably ever be to watch the original in concert.

As Zach de la Rocha is doing his own solo album, the remainder of RATM are back to cause some chaos and hopefully let everyone know that everyone should vote and change the future...mostly the future elections in the US which are coming up fast.

Needless to say that I was really excited for this show and had been since they announced a tour together. Prayers were answered and they added a date in Montreal!

The show started with DJ Lord doing a medley and creating magic with his turntables.

That was quite a show we experienced watching him perform in front of us mixing the classics from old hip hop passing through its history and finishing up in the 90s with some rock songs and ending with Nirvana in a 15 minutes mix.

They started the show with their new song Prophets of Rage, then played 2 RATM songs which energized the crowd.

Unfortunately, they played a really slow song and nobody was reacting too much to it.

Then they put some energy back into the crowd with People of the Sun and a bunch of great songs.

In the middle the show, members of RATM left to let Chuck D, B-Real and DJ Lord "rap into your(our) face". Chuck D and B-Real got closer to the crowd and even jumped in the crowd to rap a medley of their best songs.

It was a really entertaining moment.

Rage came back after this so Tom Morello could do more amazing solos with his guitar.

He was just the star of the show, so good at playing his instrument in so many different ways and managing to always impress everyone in the crowd.

Ghost of Tom Joad was performed with Awolnation singer which was the weakest moment of the show, but fortunately Morello would save the song with his solos which at least gave a special touch to this (boring) song.

Tom and DJ Lord started a competition between each other to show who was the best with his instrument! One of the highlights for sure.

Bulls on the Parade was played and seemed to please the fans who continued to trash heavily on the floor and then Killing in the Name Of was played which enflamed the crowd even further into a huge trash.

After their salutations as a group and their "legalize it" moment they left us with their message to fight back authority.

They had a few backgrounds throughout the show, but the last one was "Make Canada Rage Again" banner which was a nice touch for us :)

Great show and pleased that it happened in my town !

Set List:

1-Prophets of Rage 

2-Guerrilla Radio

3-Bombtrack

4-Miuzi Weighs a Ton

5-People of the Sun

6-Take the Power Back
7-(Rock) Superstar

8-Testify

9- Hand on the Pump / Can't Truss It / Insane in the Brain / Bring the Noise / I Ain't Goin' Out Like That / Welcome to the Terrordome
10- Sleep Now in the Fire

11- Cochise / She Watch Channel Zero?!

12- The Ghost of Tom Joad
13- Bullet in the Head

14- Shut 'Em Down

15 - Know Your Enemy

16- The Party's Over

17 - No Sleep Till Brooklyn / Fight the Power

18- Bulls on Parade
19- Killing in the Name
 



Osheaga Day 3: Electro Day!

Osheaga Day 3: Electro Day!

Finally the last day of Osheaga 2016!

This year was probably the best A list Osheaga lineup since it had most of the top bands that were touring this year including Radiohead!

Melanie Martinez

I didn't know anything about Melanie Martinez other than what I read on Osheaga's site.

The stage was really impressive!

They had decorated the whole stage like a baby room with a huge crib in the middle.

She was really entertaining by dancing a lot on stage while singing.

A lot of girls were present singing with her all of the lyrics.

The songs were good enough and perfect as the first act of the day.

M0

Mo started late but it was worth the wait... I knew of her music but I'd never seen her live.

She was dancing a lot on stage sometimes in a unusual way and it was great to watch her perform.

The songs she played were good and catchy.

She had a great style overall.

There was something about her that you couldn't look away from the whole spectacle. I would say some kind of magnetism.

I bought tickets to her next show in Montreal right about her performance.

Great to watch.

Paper Kites

I knew of them from their single, but I didn't know much else from the Paper Kites so that's why I wanted to see them.

They had good songs.

They were captivating to watch and most people seemed to enjoy the show.

It was a good time slot for them as more people were showing up.

The background kept changing and it was fun to watch it too.

The Struts

The Struts were one of the most entertaining band we saw during the weekend and at that point on Sunday it was the best so far!

I didn't know anything about them, I just read their bio to decide where to go next.

They were excellent in every way.

The singer was very charismatic and people were responding really well to him.

My son and I danced the whole set.

It was some good 80s rock pushed to the extreme :)

The singer was dressed up and face painted.

He was really entertaining the crowd and interacting a lot with everyone.

He created a few competition such as the side with the most women on other people's shoulders.

Made the crowd jump on multiple occasions.

Dilly Dally

Grunge at its best, would be a way to describe Dilly Dally!

It was great to see this band live!!

The singer had a grungy voice (a la Kurt Cobain) and the sound was also reminiscent of the Grunge era.

When the singer was screaming, she was really good to keep it controlled.

She had great looking glasses.

The crowd was intense during the show and induced in some heavy mosh pit dancing.

Strumbellas

I only watch a few minutes of their performance since other shows were conflicting, but I liked their latest album so I wanted to take a peek at what they did live.

They seemed to have a relaxed, cool, friendly attitude and music.

The violin playing was great.

The whole set I saw was like a folk party in many ways.

Good single!

Rufus du Sol

First time at the piknic Electronic stage of the weekend to watch Rufus du Sol while taking a break to eat.

It was just like a huge party that everyone was invited to!

Everyone was dancing to the great beats and the good rhythm of the songs.

Grimes



Grimes was really sick and had 2 twisted ankles when she walked on stage.

She puked in the backstage between songs BUT she gave everything she had during her performance...she was dancing around when she could while holding her stomach and sang her heart out.

I thought the songs she played were really entertaining.

Her dancers did a great job to cover for her.

I had never heard a singer scream has intensely has Grimes during a song...impressive and surprising!

Good show even though she kept being sorry for her current state.

M83

I don't have much to say about their performance as I thought they were good, but not to be remembered.

Grammatik live

Grammatik had the big task of replacing Disclosure who couldn't make it due to traveling issues.

Everyone was surprised that Disclosure couldn't be there and people were kinda angry too.

Grammatik was great though!

It was the "full band" experience since he added a guitar player.

The duo of Dj + guitar gave actually a great result.

The beats and songs were good.

The background videos were super fun to watch and well made too.

During one of the songs, the video playing was an Anonymous hacking style video and that was really interesting to watch.

RADIOHEAD!

Everyone was waiting for this show to start for so long.

It was the most packed moment of the weekend for me as I was right in the middle of the crowd and as close as I could be.

It was going to be more than 2 hours (2h20) of Radiohead music and I was excited!

During the first hour of the show there were a lot of new songs.

There were 6 screens over the stage showing each member of the band playing in different angles.

Thom was dancing on the stage during most of the show.

Everything was well executed even the changes from style to style as Radiohead reinvents themselves for each albums well the shows have that too.

The classics started coming in at half show and it was just a lot of perfect moments.

All old classics even Creep was played during the show.

The concert was simple not too extravagant, but everything was perfect, the sound, the performance being played, the atmosphere, Thom's voice.

When the crowd was singing in unison the calmer songs it was like experiencing a wave ending on a beach.

The songs that started slow and start to change in the middle to become rock songs were amazing moments to share with everyone there.

As the lighting of the stage changed the mood changed so drastically it was magical.

Not artifice this time just music and windows into each member's little bubble!

It was Radiohead!

And so Osheaga 2016 ended on the best note possible ... the end of Creep.