Broken Social Scene
Jay Watts III
Originally uploaded by sfllaw.
I really should have written about this show, soon after the 21st, but I've been putting it off. Despite what people told me after this show, I didn't find that it was pulled off very well. Lots of people thought it was awesome, but I didn't feel particularly excited. And the crowd was pretty tame for Montréal shows.
The first act had a DJ play for about two hours, but the audience up front didn't realise that he was part of the show for almost an hour. He just got up, didn't say anything, and started spinning records. People started getting really bored after this realisation, because before they just thought that the show was starting really late.
Jad Fair and Lumerob
Originally uploaded by sfllaw.
I was talking to Stef and William who were high school students from the South Shore. They were pretty disappointed that the opening act took four hours, because they had to catch a bus home. And they were here to see Broken Social Scene.
Next I talked to some girl who was really happy, and I discovered that she was not bored because she was in love with the DJ, Jay Watts III. After he got off the stage, she pushed forward and tried to get his attention. But the reception for his show was so bad that he sort of walked off dejectedly. The girl looked totally disappointed.
Islands
Originally uploaded by sfllaw.
A very interesting group came on next, calling themselves Jad Fair and Lumberob. One of them sang beat poetry, while the other one sang sound effects. They used a lot of samplers to say down rhythms and it was a pretty unique sound. They did quite well for the first thirty minutes, but the rest of their show started grating. Still, lots of potential here.
Islands came on and they had some poppy music. Their sound was a bit off, because they didn't notice that their violins and saxaphones weren't jacked in properly. They had two asian kids play on the violins, who looked really happy. After the show, some girl commented that she really like my violin playing, and I had to explain that I was not the cute guy on stage. But this band was not very popular, because a lot of people cheered when they said it was their last song. The lead singer was a pretty miffed at that.
Broken Social Scene
Originally uploaded by sfllaw.
Broken Social Scene came on next, and performed a very long set. This made a lot of people happy, but Stef and William had to leave about half an hour in. They didn't light the stage very well, so I took very bad photographs of the event. I bought some CDs because I thought their sound might grow on me, so I'll see if that happens.