Savages - mosh pit extravaganza

Savages

Corona Theatre, Montreal

02-04-2016

It was my first time seeing Savages live since I couldn't make it during their first tour because of sickness while I was in Los Angeles a few years ago so I didn't really know what to expect and I found out soon enough.

I was standing in the front row at this show even if I got in pretty late, but I quickly found out that I was really lucky to be standing slightly to the left of the stage since most of the right side started a huge mosh pit almost as soon as the second song started. Getting too old to participate in this type of dance form and I usually just want to dance where I'm standing or listening to the band and with mosh pits around it's always hard to do so since I always lookout for potential hits. Anyways the whole moment stopped later in the show when the singer asked people to move closer to each other to avoid this and then she walked on the crowd and later bodysurfed for a while which was cool to see how she trusted the audience for a long time.

The band which consists of 4 women gave an incredibly hardcore performance with their post punk songs and attitude. The energy level of the songs and the singer were really high which gave more fuel to the crowd which enjoyed hitting each other and participating in the show. Only a few rare songs like Adore Life would calm people down...a bit.

Each member of the group had her own personality or way of playing in the band which was totally different from the bandmates

The singer was singing loudly and screaming sometimes, interacting with the crowd by going around and touching people, walking on the crowd and giving anecdotes.

While the guitar player gave a performance without giving away any emotions and seemed cold or really focused on her playing skills only looking at her guitar and standing still while playing during the entire set. The only moment she moved for a few seconds was during the last song to play near the drummer and came back to her previous spot after 1 minute which was funny in a way.

Watching the bassist was an entire different story since she was always dancing to the beat of the music, she seemed to really enjoyed the moment and the crowd, but she kept her eyes closed during the entire show which is quite unusual.

Finally the drummer was the person I watched the most during the show other than the singer since she played really hard by hitting her drums like crazy and she was always smiling while playing and at the crowd between songs.

The sober or lack of mise en scene really helped to focus entirely on the music itself. No need for extra fla fla when the music goes right through you with such intensity and loudness which sometimes made it impossible to hear the singer.

The encore interlude was actually played by the guitar player and the bassist who jammed until the singer and drummer came back on stage which is unusual, but way cooler as a fan!

The show was great, intense as was the crowd.

A must to see - Half Moon Run + Emilie & Ogden

Emilie & Ogden

Metropolis

Montreal 01-04-2016

 The opening act for the first of four sold out Half Moon Run show was Emilie & Ogden, her harp.

I had listened to her album 2-3 times since she released it in 2015 and I thought it was a good album, but seeing her live was something else. I never thought I would say this, but I quickly realized that a group with the main focus is the harp can actually rock really hard with the help of her drummer and her bassist.

Her performance was splendid on the harp, her voice sounded perfect, the bass was loud, Ogden was top notch and it was a show to remember as it was heavy and intense.

The crowd seemed to really appreciate the show as well and everyone was cheering hard after each song until they saluted us goodbye only to come back at the end of the Half Moon Run performance like she told us she did during her previous tour with them where she was shining again.

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Half Moon Run

Metropolis

01/04/2016





The first of four Half Moon Run shows at the Metropolis was an event to remember and to share with others. From the moment the group stepped on the stage to the last second of the show, the crowd was supercharged as if a boy band was playing in front of them and girls were going nuts except that everyone was going nuts, loudest I've seen a crowd, and it was a rock band from Montreal playing for us. The band was obviously really happy to be here in front of this crowd at home with their parents cheering and dancing from the VIP section. I've rarely seen so much excitement at a show from the crowd. I felt quite old with the college kids that formed 95% of the crowd.

The members of the group are excellent musicians and it was easy to appreciate it through the solo performances that they were giving each one at a time during the songs that they played sometimes with their guitars sometimes with the harmonica or the keyboards, but they were also joined by numerous other musicians who were playing violin, cello, traverse flute, piano and keyboards. Speaking of the soloes on harmonica and guitar, I can say that they were intense and had a huge reaction from the crowd. There was even a moment when the singer started playing with his mouth on his guitar while on his knees and it was something to remember.

Half Moon Run is playing with 2 drum sets on stage at all times and it can be heard during the whole show and really brings the beats and the songs to a different level of energy.

These showmen played 21 songs last night that ranged from intense rock, to folk rock, dance-electro, fast and slower songs to bring intensity down a little bit only to restart strong.  The singer had a great voice, but I couldn't see him much to their setting which placed the singer behind the speakers on the left of the stage, unfortunately,which was the only issue I had last night during this amazing set.

Setlist:

Scenically they are doing great things with the lights using LED posts, colorful lights and intense spotlights that basically made me close my eyes as they blinded me, but as a whole the lights enhanced the songs. They highlighted the crowd often with main lights to see the reaction. Moreover, Half Moon Run surprised everyone with 5 seconds of an intense blast of white steam coming from the top of the stage towards the crowd which was quite impressive and gave me no time to react to take a picture since I was frozen for a few seconds.

They finished the show with everyone on stage and including Emily (without Ogden) to sing the last song with them. It was a really nice moment to wrap things up and say goodbye.

A show to remember for sure!







Death Cab for Cutie + Metric tour

Death Cab for Cutie

Centre Bell, Montreal

March 19, 2016

Death Cab for Cutie started the show strongly by playing The New Year as they opened the show. They continued playing hits after hits:

1.The New Year
2. Crooked Teeth
3. Black Sun
4. The Ghosts of Beverly Drive
5. Title and Registration
6. Little Wanderer
7.No Sunlight
8. President of What?
9. I Will Possess Your Heart
10. Why I'm Lonely (Harvey Danger cover) (Live debut; played in honour of Aaron Huffman) 
11. El Dorado
12. You Are a Tourist
13. Cath...
14. Soul Meets Body
15. Bixby Canyon Bridge

They were rocking it throughout the show when they needed to and calmed the mood down when the songs required to be more introspective. Their performance was the best I saw of them, Ben Guibbard was really intense in his performance and mostly during his time playing on his keyboards.

The only slightly boring moment for me was when they played the Harvey Danger tribute song where they didn't seem to be completely in sync with each other and Ben was singing flat or didn't know how to sing that song.

Overall I was impressed with the show they gave.

They might be coming back really soon too...

 

Metric

Centre Bell, Montreal

March 19, 2016

Metric was the main event of this op-headlining tour with Death Cab.

To start this review I just want to say that Metric is one of my favorite bands, every Metric show I've been attending has been a major event and greatly entertaining without ever having me complaining about their performance.

If you had never seen Metric live before and you heard that Emily Haines in concert is exceptional and bringing the whole band up a notch, well it is usually true and that is why I love to watch them live, but it was not the case last night.  Emily's voice was way off due to sickness probably and her scenic performance suffered from the same issue and showed a definite lack of energy. I think she tried hard to move around and push her voice as hard as she could during the show, but it showed a lot. Emily pushed the limit by doing parts of 2 songs in acapalla which didn't help the songs at that time.

Metric tried something else that was new and nice to see which was to invite the Montreal Choir to sing "Dream so real" and the intention was great, but unfortunately the people in the Choir didn't sing and when they did we couldn't hear them well or at all which rendered the moment less stellar and off they were after that song.

Fortunately, Metric the band saved the show with a really great musicianship display of what they can do including Emily who is a great musician and really intense when she plays her keyboards. There is nothing I can say negatively about their performance as soon as they just played their instruments it was something else!

They made great alternative versions of some of their songs helped greatly with an amazing lighting show which changed songs and dynamics of these songs as they played along and interrupted by the light events. When they turned into robot like musicians with their glasses and the arrangements of the songs and beats for a song it was an amazing moment to absorb and I was blasted by those versions of the songs which was something totally new on this tour.

It was a good performance overall but obviously not the best I have seen of Metric unfortunately.

Set list:

1.IOU  
2. Help I'm Alive  
3. Youth Without Youth  
4. Twilight Galaxy  
5. Cascades
6. Hustle Rose (Acapella Snippet)   
7. Too Bad, So Sad  
8. Artificial Nocturne 
9. Dreams So Real (Acoustic, with choir)   
10. Blind Valentine (Instrumental snippet)  
11. Sick Muse  
12. Collect Call  
13. Other Side 
14. Black Sheep 
15. Synthetica  
16. Combat Baby (Acapella Snippet) 
17. Gold Guns Girls
18. The Shade
Encore:
19. Celebrate  
20. Gimme Sympathy (Acoustic) 
21. Breathing Underwater



Jean Leloup solo

Jean Leloup

Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier,Montreal

13 fevrier 2016

J'ai assisté une deuxieme fois au spectacle que Jean Leloup donne en solo a la Place des Arts. J'etais tout d'abord a la Premiere le 5 décembre 2015 ou j'ai constaté un Leloup en pleine forme, en possessions de tous ses moyens de raconteur extraordinaire et qui racontait une histoire Presque biographique d'un chanteur populaire condamné a l'éternité a rejouer ses vieilles chansons en rappel malgré son véritable désir qu'était de simplement répondre a l'appel de sa bien-aimée et le spectacle se terminant lorsque finalement il répond au telephone de sa douce.

Malheureusement, la totalité de cette histoire n'est plus racontée comme telle dans la dernière version que j'ai pu voir le 13 février, mais bien une version trop épurée avec oui des appels de la douce mais qui ne culmine pas en rien.  Le spectateur serait surement perdu quand Leloup s'exclame "on est a combien?", car il n'était plus question de rappel dans l'histoire actuelle...Jean doit avoir oublier des bouts. On oublie aussi le changement de costume quand Jean devient un personnage Mexicain après un des rappel.

Bien sur on ne va pas voir Jean Leloup que pour ses histoires, mais bien pour la musique. Il a tellement de bonnes chansons qu'il peut jouer et il puise dans son grand répertoire pour jouer tout ce qui a été populaire meme Printemps-Été qu'il ne jouait plus jusqu'a maintenant. Jean s'amuse on le sent et il est plus a l'aise avec son concept que la premiere fois que je l'ai vu a la Place des Arts bien sur. Il joue des versions racourcis et entre-coupées par d'autres chansons et il est assez difficile de savoir ou il va s'en aller avec chacune des chansons qu'il ne livre jamais de la meme facon. Vu n'entendrez surement pas une chanson dans son integralité, mais il est possible de chantonner avec lui quelques morceaux qui sont jouer dans une version deconstruites et calmes.

Si vous aimez les concerts ou les gens sont sagements assis et ecoutent attentivement, vous apprecierez le spectacle que Leloup donne, car peu de gens chantonnent et aucun ne risque de se lever. J'aime beaucoup mieux la version band que Leloup donne au Metropolis, car c'est un vrai spectacle a la Leloup rempli d'energie ou le spectateur se donnent et Leloup utilise cette energie pour en redonner et danser jusqua sa mort certaine. Leloup ne parlera pas du tout dans cette version du spectacle, car on a pas le temps dattendre.

C'est tout de meme du grand Leloup, alors bon spectacle!

Dumas - Remixé et en feu!

Dumas -

 La Tulipe -

29 janvier 2016

Il a fait chaud dans la salle La Tulipe hier soir! La raison principale étant bien sur que Dumas revenait au La Tulipe après 6 ans d'absence et il allait enflammer la place pendant 2 heures.

Je n'avais pas vu Dumas sur scène depuis 8 ans, car après l'avoir vu a de nombreuses reprises malgré sa présence toujours professionnelle et dansante, j'étais ennuyé par ses "moves" et sa lecture de ses chansons souvent livrées de la meme facon.

 

Le spectacle d'hier allait me prouver qu'il s'était amélioré grandement, que la foule allait le suivre dans son délire et qu'il était vraiment enthousiaste d'être de retour dans "SA" salle préférée a Montreal.

Tout d'abord, comme Jean Leloup, Dumas fait sa propre premiere partie donc il a commencé avec des chansons de son dernier album et d'ancienne chanson dans des versions changées mais reconnaissables pendant environ une vingtaine minutes avant de prendre une pause et d'ensuite revenir avec un aplomb toujours plus grand. La suite de la performance qu'il a donné en fera un des meilleurs spectacles que j'ai vu depuis longtemps.

Du début a la toute fin du spectacle, Steve Dumas et ses musiciens se sont donnés en spectacle en dansant tout en jouant de leurs instruments respectifs, de pas de danse spectaculaires et loufoques en passant par les aller et venus sur le rebord de la scene afin d'etre le plus pres de son public ou en sautant sur place tout en jouant et chantant des versions remixees de toutes ses chansons.

D'ailleurs, je ne crois pas qu'il a joué une seule chanson version album mais toujours remixée, en faisant un jam avec ses musiciens et en entre-croisant les paroles de d'autres chansonniers, "sur la piste de danse", "toute la nuit"/"all night".

Les déhanchements, l'interaction contante avec la foule et les rythmes endiables de la musique ont fait en sorte que toute la sale a dansé et chantonné les chansons jusqu'a la toute fin du spectacle lorsque Dumas et son bassiste sont venus jouer des chansons accoustiques sans micros en plein milieu de la foule.

Si Dumas n'a pas répété 50x "sur la piste de dance... olympique!!!", il ne la pas dit du tout...

Dumas a donné un spectacle incroyable...a revoir!

2016!

This year I will post about all the shows I will go see!


New year, new objectives and lots of fun to come.  :)

An evening with GOASTT

When I bought a ticket to go see Ghost of a Saber Tooth Tiger, I didn't know much about the band other than it was Sean Lennon and his girlfriend's,Charlotte Kemp Muhl, band.


I didn't hesitate much when i heard the band was coming to Vancouver because i wanted to see the son of John Lennon perform which to me was 'Once in a lifetime' opportunity.

I listened to a few songs of his new album that came out 2 weeks before the show to know what was coming my way and be somewhat more interested during the show. I might have listened to the album once more the day before the show and I felt it was a good album that sounded a little bit like a Beatles' album of the Sgt. Pepper's era.

I heard an interview with Sean a week after the show where he said it wasn't an album that was like Sgt Pepper's like everybody seems to say, because they used more modern instruments and techniques than the Beatles at the time and it could be regarded as a post-modernistic twist of psychedelic music. Nonetheless, it still sounds somewhat Beatles-esque songs to me.

The show was set at the 1 year old Imperial theatre which is a small venue in Gastown. It was my first time in this theatre and I thought it was a nice place, strangely decorated with old Chinese soldiers statues and red drapes which seemed like they wanted the place to look fancy in some ways. During the show, Sean and Charlotte talked a lot about those replica of well known statues which seemed inappropriate and intriguing anyways. So the theatre seemed intimate enough and I was able to get to the front really easily which was good to me at first, but ended up making the beginning of the music experience really limited.

I was saying before that the songs have a Sgt. Peppers' album tone, but Sean also wears a lot what his father was wearing and also looks a lot like him...

During the first 3 songs i couldn't hear Sean or Charlotte sing at all and could barely hear them when they were talking after the songs, I didn't understand why the sound engineer let it continue like this without fixing the microphones until I heard someone say that the speakers above us were the ones shooting out the vocals...I walked back during the rest of the show and was finally able to hear them sing.

Finally, the show was going to be better and I would be able to truly appreciate Sean's good voice and remarks between songs. The only issue was that I would be far from them starting at this moment, but it was still worth it. The songs played live was really giving them a new life and a really great way to appreciate them better than the album's version...maybe it was Sean's and Charlotte's magic that made these songs shine in their presence, but it was a great show.

Before the show I thought, without knowing is personality at all, that Sean would probably be playing his songs, drink, don't talk much with the audience, have a crazy big ego and just be cold because that's what a lot of "famous" or son of X person are expected to be from my experience or rumors and gossips. Fortunately, to my great surprise, Sean seems to be the nicest, without big ego, type of guy.

Sean talked between every song about the venue, to and about the audience, about the songs they were going to play, about his relationship with Charlotte and about his experience with the band/previous albums and about his parents.

Charlotte and Sean were also going back and forth talking about their relationship, making fun of each other, letting us into their chemistry and learning how they actually work really well together. I really appreciated to see all of that transpire in their performance. I felt like a was their friends, that we were all invited into their living room and having a good time exchanging about our problems and pleasures.

Unfortunately, like I've said in the past, most crowds I see in concerts in Vancouver, unlike in Montreal for example, are somewhat hard to please or it seems hard to get some demonstration of happiness and letting go from concert goers which probably appreciate what they see and hear, but also seem to "want" to be entertain and look like saying "come on entertain me I paid for it". This attitude was highlighted with a good sense of humor from Sean once during the show comparing the crowd to some cool New York scene that he knows well.

Near the end of the show, Sean announced that he was going to meet anyone interested in the back of the theatre to sign some stuff...it was a huge surprise to me and probably most people there...no one ever does that except first acts who want to find new fans to add to their small follower group. This was amazing...I might meet Sean Lennon and talk to him after the show...which obviously I decided to do...WOW!

Charlotte and Sean announced that their encore performance was going to be added to the main show instead of just leaving the stage and "pretending not to come back for a while", they would rather continue the party and end the show after the next 3 songs without compromising their energy on stage. At the end of the second encore song I went in front to get the setlist from the stage. At first, I didn't get the setlist I sought to get, but a minute later I saw their drummer on the floor behind me and I asked him for a copy which he immediately fetched on stage for me...what a great band :)

I went to see and talk with Sean at the merch table like a lot of people did. I got a vinyl and he signed it with my copy of the setlist. He was super friendly with everyone and talked a lot with people and he was impressed by some of the things people brought to get signed, like photos of him with his family when he was younger and such...

Great show and I would totally recommend to go see them live!!