ItalFest day one

A few weeks ago, in a local paper, my roomie mentioned that Frank Marino would play at ItalFest; Marino a local who was the lead guitar and singer of the band Mahogany Rush. It was a big deal and notable as Marino hadn't performed in 18 years and ItalFest found a way to pull him out of retirement.

So then I looked at the ItalFest site and found they have three nights of shows of different performers, so I decided I wouldn't attend only Marino's show, but as much as I can.

For ItalFest there are two stages on Boul St. Laurent, one facing north at St. Zotique and the other, bigger stage at Jean Talon facing south. The two stages enclose that part of boul St. Laurent to be pedestrian only and there were food and merchandise shops all along that enclosed space, mostly Italian based.

When I arrived, the small stage had a series of young Italian, or more likely Canadian-Italian, singers each singing one or two songs - these are the future singers given a chance to perform in front of a crowd. I didn't stay long as I wanted to explore the festival grounds and then return for the next performer.

Davide Bazzali is both a singer and a chef with his own restaurant just a block away from where this stage was. He sang what I would guess are traditional Italian songs that a few of the people around me who were older than me knew. Here he is:

This stage has a nice backdrop:

It looks like a church, and for sure had been a church at some point, but upon closer inspection I discovered that it had been converted to residential units. Anyhow, here is a short section of Bazzali performing:

They took about 12 minutes to clear off Bazzali and his accompanying piano player to then set up for the Jazz Kartel Big Band. On this small stage they managed to cram in about 20 people, it was crowded, but they made it work. They played some really good jazz songs with good rhythm and good brass playing.

That was the last show on this stage, so I made my way to the stage on the north end, and waited for the next show, which was Costanza, a woman who sings, apparently, in 6 or 7 languages. That night she sang songs in English, Italian and Spanish.

While they were undoing the stage for Costanza and preparing the stage for the next act I noticed that from behind the stage we were witnessing the sun set as viewed between the stage and the view that the nearby buildings allowed us:

The next band was Mimmo's Aftershow; they played heavy rock songs with a mix of original songs and covers.

In the last song this band played they invited Costanza to join them:

Once this Aftershow band wrapped up, the crowd around me got denser as more people came into the area for the Frank Marino show. He and his band came on and the first sound was him doing a two minute electric guitar solo and then the band kicked in behind him. He did sing in most of the songs, but also, spent a lot of time doing solo guitar work while his band played rhythm behind him.

I did not stay until the end of Marino's set as I have had a dry cough that started perhaps a week ago and it has not gone away. I can go for three or five hours without coughing once, and then suddenly it starts up again, so I managed to get through all of the previous shows, but during Marino's I started again; I didn't have water with me, so I ended up leaving after four songs.

There are three shows tonight, but there is also rain and thunderstorms that are forecast to happen at the same time as these shows. I will check the weather forecast up until the last minute before I need to leave to catch the first show at 18h, and if it looks to be okay, I will go.

JFL Weird Al

So night two finished with Weird Al Yankovic and his band performing a very strong two hour set. Often between songs the entire band would go off stage, during this time on the video screen behind the stage there would play different things, and then the band would return in a new set of costumes.

Some of the videos played during this time was Al on one camera doing an interview as the interviewer asking really odd and funny questions to A level celebrity responses to what were likely inoccuous questions.

The youth surrounding me, with me perhaps 4m from the stage, all seemed to know way more about Weird Al than I did, which surprised me a little as Al is more from my era as a GenXer than he is of theirs. They sang along to many of his songs.

I took four video clips of his songs but one of them was blocked immediately upon upload. Who knows if any of the three below will also get blocked in time.

JFL Night Two with Wes Barker

JFL night two began again with a DJ from 19h to 20h, then Wes Barker MCing three comedians and then a really fun Weird Al Yankovic show.

I didn't record anything from Wes' introduction time. He enlisted a volunteer from the audience who he had picked out ahead of time as there is no easy access from the audience area to the stage, so that Wes could do some close-up magic with someone. One trick that was neat, he put water into a cup, perhaps filling it only 2/7ths, had Luca, the volunteer place it atop his head. Then Wes asked the audience for a magic word which some people called out, and then Wes asked Luca to turn the cup upside down over his head - he did so and no water came out.

Wes then showed us while also saying, there was a diaper at the bottom of the cup (which had absorbed all of the water). He then redid the same trick showing us the cup was empty, and still when Luca overturned it, no water came out, so that was impressive.

Anyhow the first comedian was Hassan Phills, he was a good story teller comedian, he definitely had some funny moments.

Next was Mario Adrion and he was the funniest comedian of all of the ones I saw over these two days, he had a pretty rapid fire delivery and kept coming up with unique views and funny quips.

The last comedian for me at this JFL event was Eve Parker Finley; she had a small keyboard that she played along with some comedic songs that she had written, she was good.

Overall I had a good time with all of the comedians at these free shows, on the first day there were tables and chairs so I got there early and grabbed a good seat. On the second day, due to Weird Al being on the plan, they had removed all of the tables and chairs, so I ended up standing for the whole evening, but that was fine. I'll post more about the Weird Al show tomorrow.

JFL night one with Sarah Sherman

After Wes Barker, there was a slight gap, and then what they called JFL All Stars came on, it ended up being five comedians in addition to Sarah Sherman, the MC, who opened up the evening session with her own set.

She had a particular funny bit where she spoke in a lower register specifically to a woman who admitted she was high in a very entertaining way; though I didn't manage to capture that on video.

Next was Asif Ali, he had a few good jokes in reference to his ethnicity and was otherwise pretty good.

Next was Laura Peek, by this time I had seen so many comedians I am having a hard time remembering her; so I guess her set wasn't particularly memorable.

Next was Tone Bell, he was a story teller, so there was a lot of setup before we'd get to a joke or funny part, but he was a good story teller, so that was okay.

Next was Marie Faustin, she had a good set and carried herself well.

And finally was Michael Longfellow; he seemed a little overwhelmed by the size of his audience and that threw him a little; eventually he got going but his wasn't a great set.

JFL night one with Wes Barker

At the Just for Laughs festival this year they had a series of outdoor shows, the first weekend and the Thursday night of the subsequent weekend were all French language comedians, and the last Friday and Saturday night of the event's free outdoor shows were for English language comedians, so I attended both of these last two days.

On both days they had a DJ play music from 19h-20h, then Wes Barker as MC for three comedians from 20h-21h, and then at 21h on Friday night was more comedians, and Saturday night was Weird Al Yankovic.

So here is Wes Barker from the first night:

I like magic and he was entertaining.

Next was Pantelis, he had purposeless foul language and had a few funny moments, but this wasn't the best show of the evening. What was nice about him is that he is local and so he could speak to things very specific to Montreal.

Next was Tara Cannistraci, she was a dynamo on the stage, lots of energy, a pretty good comedy set.

And the last performer with Wes Barker as MC was Ben Sosa-Wright. He had base humour and too had some funny moments, but of those seen so far, Cannistraci was my favourite by the end of Wes Barker's MC hour.

Nuits D'Afrique review

There was a lot of mentioning that it was the 40th anniversary, which is pretty impressive that this festival has been running this long. I enjoyed it enough that I will attend again in the future. There were a few rap bands that I would perhaps be more aware of and skip as that isn't music to my liking.

There are food offerings from a variety of different African and South American countries or regions throughout the grounds of the festival; in a future year I will see about trying out the food at each of them over the days of the festival.

One technical issue is that of the two main stages, the Scene Loto did not have small audience facing speakers at the front of the stage facing the audience. This meant that for those of us right up front we did not hear as well any of the electronic sounds (like electric guitar or keyboards) but did hear very clearly any percussion or brass. This made it so that the balance of the sound wasn't great being right up close to the stage. The TD stage did have those front speakers, so it was okay to be near the front.

As the shows alternated between the two stages, I would leave a show 10-20 minutes early, depending on how much I was enjoying the show, to then go to the other stage to be at the front. For the last show that started at 20h15, I would stay until the end (if I liked the performance) as there were no more shows at the opposite stage.

The Just for Laughs comedy festival is in full swing now with many paid show events, however, there have been outdoor free shows this past weekend for French speaking comedians, and this coming weekend there are free shows for English speaking comedians, so I will attend for that.

Nuits D'Afrique last day

This was a good night with each of the four shows being ones I enjoyed, mostly.

It began with Sandya Fusion from Morocco and Quebec, what I liked about this band was the fusion part; their music was a mix of what I'll call traditional African and with more modern sounds too. Also, it was the first time I see a violin at any of the shows of this festival.

Next was Tamboreal Samba Bloco from Brazil and Quebec with a sexily dressed and sexy moving main singer. In addition to watching her move around the stage, this many member band had good songs, and as entertainment, additional dancers came on stage at various points.

Next was Elida Almeida from Cape Verde. I had trouble hearing or understanding her singing as only when she sung loudest could I make out any words, however, the band surrounding her played really well and so I enjoyed the performance as a whole. The second video below I took from a little further back, where I moved to to see if the sound quality would get any better.

The last show of Nuits D'Afrique that I attended and enjoyed was Diblo Dibala et Matchatcha from DR Congo. I am guessing Dibala is the primary guitarist at the front center. They were a good band and thier music had very brief moments of prog-ness with a change in tempo or key, but for the most part every song kind of sounded similar, so this wasn't the top show of the day. For some of the songs there were two dancers, and during some of the time they had two dancers, they brought a few people from the audience to dance too.

Nuits D'Afrique day four

Due to the forecast of a lot of rain on the subsequent day, I decided to give a try to attending five shows on this day by adding the 22h show. I had a nap earlier in the day to help allow me to stay up later. Well, I suppose if I had done my research, I'd have picked a different night to stay late as I wasn't impressed with the 22h15 performer.

To begin, Bastin band from Algeria and Quebec was okay, I didn't end up staying for the whole show.

Next was Richy Vay from Haiti and Quebec; he did a combination of singing and rapping, he had a good band around him but his singing wasn't my cup of tea.

Then it was Taafé Fanga from West Africa and Quebec, it was very percussion heavy so I didn't stick this one out.

Lorraine Klaasen was the next show; and somehow I had heard of this name before. She is based in Ontario and from South Africa. I ended up recording a second video as that song in the second video had a really cool bass line and I liked it enough. I stayed for this whole show as the next show, 70 minutes later, was at this same stage.

Once Lorraine Klaasen had ended, there was a presentation displayed on a building opposite the stage to show some images of this festival, celebrating its 40th year. Then, a Montreal known DJ came on for about 30 minutes, and until the Admiral T show was to start at 22h15. All there was on the stage was a DJ station, and, the DJ as well; otherwise the stage was empty, which allowed for Admiral T and his two dancers plenty of room to dance and move around. He had thousands of fans who knew his songs; the parterre was very full, but this music was simply not of interest to me, so I snaked my way out of the crowd at a moment that I saw two others do the same, so I followed them.

Not wanting to deal with rain and potential thunderstorms I have decided to not go today and tomorrow is the last day; the weather looks good so I will go on that last day.

Nuits D'Afrique day three

Today was a day of two bands I didn't like so much, and two bands I liked quite a lot.

My day began with the Salamate Gnawa group with members from Morocco and Quebec. It was a central main singer with, I suppose, the equivalent of a guitar when fine workmanship tools were less available. The other members of the group sang together in background and had what I'll call clackers in their hands to provide a background sound to the mostly rhythm that the central guitar player was playing. I didn't understand much of what was sung, and while it was nice to see these performers, I didn't get much enjoyment from their performance.

Next was Wess Beaudry, he is the drummer, primary singer and songwriter of the group (with members from Haiti and Quebec) which included two additional percussionists, two keyboardists and two background singers, the left singer in a blue net top was also a good dancer and, well, really nice to look at. I really liked this performance, with so much instrumentation the songs they played were rich and full. It was entertaining that the songs sung were often bilingual (English / French) which plays well in Montreal where most people are bilingual in this way.

Next was Somos Mas, an all female group from various South American countries; they sang only in Spanish and while they sounded good, not understanding them made this less interesting for me.

The last band, Cumbria Control, with members from Colombia and Quebec, was really good, they too had multiple percussion plus a cute keyboardist hidden at the back right in addition to the other band members. I really enjoyed them - for a few of their songs they had long instrumental sections that were really good.

Nuits D'Afrique day two

Very pleasant weather today; temperature around 25c, I really enjoyed the last show.

First I saw Zalam Kao with members from Haiti, Argentina, Tunisia, Brazil and Quebec; their songs were a combination of singing and rapping; with good musicianship behind it all. Each member except for the drummer had an occasion to be the primary singer/rapper though the front man did most of it. Their music isn't what I am very interested in so I didn't stay long.

Next was Les Frères Sissokho & Élage Diouf with members from Senegal and Quebec. Two of the front players had musical instruments I'd never seen before; it didn't seem like they changed the notes like on a fret board, but rather, plucked the strings with fixed notes, more like a harp, albeit with a much lower number of strings. I enjoyed the songs they played, good rhythm, good singing, good playing.

I left the show a little before it ended and went to A&W for supper, then I returned to catch the next show already in progress. Sahra Halgan from Somaliland is the singer and while the musicians behind her were really good; I wasn't enjoying this one very much. One thing that was interesting about this band is that rather than having a bass guitarist, the keyboard player on right of stage (from audience perespective) had two keyboards, a primary one for playing keyboards, and a secondary one that he played only bass sounding notes as a bass player would play in support of the rhythm of the song.

I arrived early and was right in front for the Kizaba show, however, obnoxiously a guy ahead and to the right of me had his mobile device up above his head for the entire show, from beginning to the end. I did my best in one of the videos below to film through him.

When Kizaba and his two dancers entered the stage, it was the most theatrical thing I've seen between the Jazz Fest, Soul Fest and what I've seen so far at Nuits D'Afrique, it was quite impressive. I stayed for the whole performance, he was engaging, watching the dancers was fun, he encouraged us to dance, he had us raise our mobile devices with our flashlights on which looked really cool, the music was okay, though, with him as drummer, there were a few songs in a row where he had the exact same rhythm riff which became a little too repetitive.

Incidentally, the two dancers only had those electronic display masks on for the first song, for the next three songs they were in these dark outfits, then they took a break for four songs, then they came back in new outfits to dance some more until the end of the show.

Nuits D'Afrique day one

It is the Nuits D'Afrique's 40th anniversary and my first ever time attending. This International Festival started a few days ago with paid-only shows, but from July 14 to 19 there are free shows taking place on two stages, with the shows alternating between the two.

Last night I watched the first three shows and during the third there was a thunderstorm that came in, so I decided to call it a night, even though the last show at 22h looked to be one I might have enjoyed.

First up was Chibane, from Algeria, he was very energized as a performer, his first two songs were in French language, and his next two were in Arabic language. The people around me in the audience were clearly mostly Algerian or north African, and some of them knew the words to his songs. I would skip this one if he came back again in the future.

Next was the Nakazoé Orkestra from Burkina Faso, they were a high energy danceable band with the wooden xylophone player on the right side (from audience perspective) having many solos. The drummer was really good, and you can see he is wearing long pants and a hoodie - it was 32c and very humid, he must have been sweating profusely under that outfit. I quite enjoyed their show even though I didn't understand any of the lyrics and would be happy to attend their show again.

The last show I went to looked interesting to me; an all female indigenous band from Brazil, from the Amazon to be more specific. Of course they would sing in a language I do not know, however, I found them charming and entertaining. I managed to watch 35 minutes of their 60 minute set when the dark clouds arrived and I began to make my way to shelter, and onwards home.

All in all it was a good day of concerts, liking the latter two I attended. This event isn't as crowded as the Jazz Festival was, however, it is possible that the later shows would have bigger audiences as I attended the 17h, 18h and 19h shows.

buck up, fried

I've been on public transit a lot more lately, taking the metro, the REM and buses. While looking at the metro map while riding the metro, I had an idea about expansion. Below is the network as it is and showing the Blue line extension heading north eastwards.

Once the Anjou station (the blue line extension furthest station north-east) is built and in action, it seems a no brainer to create a U connection to the tip of the green line with perhaps one or two stations in that U shape.

The next obvious one is to connect the Orange line from Cote Vertu to MoMo, stopping a few times on the island of Montreal and at one of the two REM stations in its path, and then one or two additional stops in Laval before reaching MoMo. This makes the Orange line a loop.

The least obvious one is to connect Angrignon to Snowdon, so that what was once a U shape given the first suggestion I gave above, now becomes a loop.

The final suggestion I have is to extend the Yellow line to end up directly at the St Hubert airport, to have the metro station embedded beneath the terminal.

The mayor of Montreal has asked what can be done with Lisette, the TBM being used for the Blue Line extension, and I would say at the very least, do that connection to the tip of the green line at that north-east end of the island; the TBM will already be in exactly the correct position to simply continue going along the path I propose.

image

Jazz Fest day 10, the last day of the festival, had me arrive at the TD Stage at around 18h25, I found a somewhat younger woman alone wandering around a little in my immediate vicinity, I ended up engaging with her in conversation for the half hour we were waiting for the show at 19h to start. That was very pleasant, we talked about shows we had attended, what we liked about them and so on.

At 19h, Sparklmami began her show. Her backing band was excellent in all of their skilled positions, she herself was a little odd, seemingly stream of conciousness word play bounded by also some singing. On one hand she wore a black glove with the glove's fingers extended a hand length beyond the end of her own fingers. I mostly enjoyed the show due to the band surrounding her.

At the end of that show I sped, as one can between thousands of people moving in random directions, to the Rogers stage to catch the Sue Foley show. She is a highly skilled guitarist herself and had a good band including a second guitarist who mostly played rhythm behind her, but who also soloed at times when she would allow for it. She soloed so much, if we added up her solo time it probably was about 3/7ths of her one hour allotment. The backing band did well to keep a great rhythm behind her, though, the bass guitarist looks a little bored at times.

Once Sue Foley's show ended, I stayed at the Rogers stage and moved to be right up against the front gate of the stage for the next show that would start in 90 minutes. While waiting there I could hear Etran de L'Air on the adjecent Rio Tinto stage next door; and they sounded really great; maybe in a future year I will make an effort to be at their stage for their show.

The last show of this year's Jazz Fest that I attended was Chicha Libre, the alternative was a rap show by Smino that given my preference, I was happy to miss out on. Chicha Libre is from Brooklyn, but each of them are also from various countries like Mexico, Puerto Rico, Venezuela and the guy in front from France. They played Peruvian music that also sounded a little bit like klezmer music without a central and south American angle. Unfortunately the drummer from my vantage point was often hidden by the main singer and ukelele player up front. The video below I try to show her.

image

Jazz Fest day nine wasn't quite as hot, so that was good.

I arrived in time to catch the Choir! Choir! Choir! show at the TD stage at 19h. It was two men, both choir directors in times past, one of them playing acoustic guitar accompaniment, dividing us down the middle to create harmonies, words on the screen Kareoke style, singing songs we all know like Bon Jovi Living on a prayer, Karma Culture Club and Fleetwood Mac Dreams. The two of them encouraged everyone in the audience to sing and pretty much everyone did. At one point they asked for a raise of hands who had been to a CCC show before and it seemed about 3/7ths did, then he asked a raise of hands who hadn't, and it was about 4/7ths, me included. It was fun to sing along.

After that show I made my way to the Rogers stage, to get there I had to pass through reams of people - I guess on a good weather Friday night, the festival had a lot of extra people. Guy Bélanger and his band were performing. He has a special belt that has perhaps a dozen harmonicas, I suppose each one tuned a little differently. For most of the songs, he played one of his harmonicas, and/or he sung, or, his bassist sung two songs. Most of the songs were up tempo and many included both a harmonica solo and a lead electric guitar solo. It was okay as a band and performance, but it was a little too much harmonica for me.

I stayed at the Rogers stage so that I could be at the very front of the next show, even though it was 90 minutes later. About a half hour before the next show started I engaged in conversation with two people who were friends with each other, a young man and woman, talking about the festival, the shows we had attended, what this upcoming show was about and so on, so that was nice. The performer was Tanya Tagaq who, with a cellist and a drummer, filled about 50 continuous minutes with a wide variety of sounds, including some throat singing and mostly unintelligble sounds. The drummer and cellist contributed in their own wildly random ways to provide a show that is both bizarre and moving, odd and compelling. The light show added to the whole effect of this very peculiar performance.

There was a young woman right next to me at the front railing as close to the stage as possible whom Tanya seemed to recognize; in the end this young woman joined Tanya on stage and the two of them together did a short throat singing duo.