Concert Reviews

This one's going to be a doozie: 10 bands played the Wyrd MTL festival on June 20th and I only have 600 words to run down each of their sets. Yikes! Get ready for a hardcore attention deficit concert review. This review will be especially difficult as throughout the course of the show the only thing I could say about most sets was that they were "…weird, well not like actually weird, but like, I'm such an idiot because it's called Wyrd MTL. This is so frustrating."

On June 16th, for the FrancoFolies de Montreal, I went to Metropolis to see Akhenaton and Faf Larage with Quebec rapper Anodajay opening. The show started at 21h, but by 20h30 the place was packed; this was going to be a good night.

Brett Dennen took the stage in front of a packed house at the gorgeous and historic National Theatre. While I disapprove of his music generally, the songsmith has an undeniable charisma, and set against the smoky, softly lit backdrop of the National’s stage his 6’5” frame is impossible to ignore. His entrance was marked by screams from the crowd, many of whom had obviously come just to hear him play.

Blackfield… coming to Montreal? It was hard to contain the excitement! Finally, this amazing union of Porcupine Tree’s Steve Wilson and Israel’s most prominent rock musician, Aviv Geffen, were coming and I was stoked.