low

the second concert i saw in the sala rosa was one of low, an american band that is always up for some slow, sad but beautiful songs. there were two support acts: 'his name is alive' and 'death vessel'. death vessel is a solo artist, a troubadour with an acoustic guitar and folk songs. the gender of the artist was a subject of discussion between sébastien and me. sébastien said "man", i thought "woman". try to find out for yourself with this mp3. when a solo artist does a support act, it's guaranteed that the crowd is chatting on top of it. so it was weird when a girl on the front row asked for the microphone of the singer and started complaining about the noisy people. bottom line of her discours (in both french and english): "this is not a bar!". shouted reply from someone at the bar at the back of the sala rosa: "it is a bar!".

calgary

calgary is a city located in western canada, in the province of alberta, a 4 hour flight away from montreal. alberta has been in the news quite a lot in the last few years because of its oil sands. so as you can imagine, calgary, a city with a population of just under a million, is booming! a lot of people go there to look for work, including a lot of quebecois. housing prices are rising fast and there are construction sites all over. while i was there for a trade show, i also noticed the low taxes and the multiple cowboy hats and boots. calgary is famous for its stampede, a huge outdoor rodeo held in the city for a week each year.
(on one of the pictures you can see my colleague julie and me showing off the scars we made when packing up our booth for the trade show.)

toronto part II

when gianni was in town, the three of us drove to toronto for a long weekend. it was the second toronto trip for marie, but the first for gianni and me. the city doesn't have a good image for the montreal people, at least that's what we felt before leaving. but as soon as we arrived in our nice b&b (a whole floor for us only! great breakfasts with quiche and waffles!) we saw a charming side of toronto. especially queen street has a great vibe, with lots of nice bars, restaurants and shops. the fact there are some interesting music shops helps, too!

talking about music: in the evening gianni and me went to a concert of the montreal band miracle fortress. in fact it is a one man band who plays live with 3 other people. it all happened at an art gallery and the sound system was quite limited. it didn't do his well crafted debut album justice. the playing was too rough too. miracle fortress is best to be enjoyed on a couch with headphones.

the next day we saw the grandiose gay parade. the most intriguing thing we saw wasn't really part of the parade. it was a soul band that was busking in that street. 4 kids (going from young to very young) playing keyboards, drums, guitar and bass and a big brother or young dad who sang and entertained the audience. the older guy was having fun while the backing band looked like they wanted to play in the garden with their ball instead of doing soul covers in the heat on the main street of toronto. it was amazing how well they still played - they didn't miss a note of a groove - while showing a total lack of interest. we filmed it but the quality is a bit low so i don't know if you can catch the grim faces.

in the evening we took a boat to little known toronto island, only a couple of minutes away from the city. the short boat ride was pretty refreshing after spending the whole day in the city heat! we had to rush to get to the only food place open until 9 pm (torontonians seem to eat pretty early..). but finally we enjoyed a juicy cheeseburger at the island's marina, with a great view of the sunset and the cn tower, toronto's own eiffel tower-like symbol (you can see it on half the pics here - including growing out of gianni's head).

we also met up with sameer, friend of our friend stijn. we had met sameer in belgium a couple of years ago, and since he now lives in toronto it was a great opportunity to see him again. he showed us around in the pretty large chinatown and multicultural kensington market. sameer poses in front of the ontario college of art & design where he teaches. the architecture of the building is really interesting: a part of the building rests on big pencils.

here's a video report about our trip in toronto: you'll see the b&b, gay parade, skyline... and hear music by miracle fortress.

loney, dear

there's no spelling mistake: it is not lonely but loney dear, a swedish singersongwriter i discovered on the luisterpaal. it was the beautiful artwork of his album cover that brought my attention to his music. last year he signed with sub pop, a label in seattle. the result was a tour through north america. unfortunately, montreal wasn't on the list. imagine my surprise when i noticed his name in the weekly concert guide of a boston news paper on our first morning in boston: loney dear was about to play in a theatre, not far from where we were staying! it was an interesting double bill with low, another sub pop act that i saw earlier in montreal.

loney dear stands for contemporary folk songs with the fragility of a sufjan stevens and the epic melodies of the arcade fire. "i am john" is only one example of how talented the guy is: with only a few melodies he creates a rollercoaster of a track, resulting in a crescending falsetto that would even make the bee gees jealous (download here). the guy made about 5 albums in three years and you'll find some older mp3s here and there, and 2 great songs over here. or you can hear loney dear live too: he will be playing in brussels (botanique) on the 10th of may with support act patrick watson, an upcoming singersongwriter from montreal who sounds like jeff buckley playing philip glass on a piano.