osheaga music festival
on the first weekend of september i went to osheaga, the 'werchter' of montreal. the 2 days event takes place in parc jean-drapeau and not on a cow field which makes a nice difference with the bigger belgian festivals. what i also liked is the fact that they have 2 main stages next to each other. one act finishes, the crowd moves to the left, another act starts straight away, plays an hour, the crowd moves to the right etc... downside is that this is quite tiring when there are only interesting bands. but the advantage is that you don't have to miss a single note (apart from what's going on on the two small stages further up in the parc). another cool thing (for me, not for the organizers) is that not that many people turned up. it never was a problem to get close to the stage.here's an overview of saturday's bands.
apostle of hustle: one of the thirty broken social scene guitar players opens the festival with its own band. it took a while before the sound was right. we even didn't hear a guitar during the first song. how long does it take to push one fader? a question i asked myself a few times later that day.
editors: it was strange to see them so early in the day. but they were going for it. "smokers outside the hospital doors" was a first highlight. the backing vocals sounded great in that song but friends were quite sure that a tape was playing along. where are the days when drummers had massive headphones and you knew which trickery they were doing?
xavier cafeine: a show i didn't want to miss, especially because a friend and colleague, alex, plays with mister cafeine.
blonde redhead: although i knew the band and the praise they've got for their last two albums, i finally fell in love with their songs and sound. i went to the itunes store the morning after.
patrick watson: a bit disappointing after the amazing show i saw in brussels in may. the band should have adapted their set to the festival atmosphere a bit more.
stars: i've never been convinced by this band, although they have two amazing songs ("ageless beauty" and "your ex-lover is dead", which they played at the end). i would like them more if amy millan sang a bit more instead of that guy.
feist: the highlight. a lot of charisma, a great voice, beautiful songs and excellent musicians around her. on top of that a crystal clear sound. check her out when she's in town... in the audience we saw a lookalike of bent van looy of das pop. and yes it was him (thanks tinneke for spotting and approaching him).
dumas: francophone superstar and the quebecois crowd seemed to like it.
damien rice: i like the records of damien rice. i listened a lot to "O". i read raving reviews about the his shows. i saw video footage of a humorous and entertaining guy. alas, no humour during his show. and the little lo-fi touch that makes his music sweet was washed away by the superslick musicians he brought with him. i saw a drummer behind a drum kit that was too big for this type of music, a bass player who played like a session musician, a guitar player who added nothing to the songs...
the smashing pumpkins: the new stuff didn't interest me that much. i'm surprised they're still doing well in de afrekening. billy corgan replaced gone band members with lookalikes, which seems a bit insulting to me (for both old and new members). after hearing "tonight tonight" and "stand inside your love", two songs i really like, and called it a day...
i returned the next day because i got hold of a free ticket, which meant i could see interpol and bloc party. interpol played a lot of songs from "antics" and the singer had the best oneliner inbetween songs. "yesterday we played in toronto but this is so much better", he said with an at the same time serious and ironic voice, referring to the toronto-montreal rivalry. the crowd cheered of course...
bloc party didn't sound right. the drums were so loud that i couldn't hear the guitars. it was quite tiring to imagine the guitar parts and i left during the encores.
posted by pieter at 12:12 PM
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