Eastern Promises’ host Donald Roberge spoke with Fredericton, New Brunswick-based singer-songwriter Marc McLaughlin, ahead of his September 11th performance at Mai/Son, in Montreal. McLaughlin discusses his 2025 release, ‘All I Can Say’, how humor informs his songwriting, and what we can expect at his upcoming show.

Over 70 Palestinian students waiting to attend university in Canada are stuck in the Gaza strip, waiting for the final approval of their study permits. Six of these students hope to attend Concordia this academic year.

Many students in Gaza have been waiting for six to eight months to hear back from Immigration refugees and citizenship Canada IRCC regarding their study permits. Some have started to lose offers as a result of not getting these permits, two students, slated to come to the University of Waterloo this fall, were killed.

The Palestinian Students & Scholars at Risk Network, PSSAR, is a group that works to help palestinian academics safely continue or begin their studies. CJLO spoke with the chair of the board for the PSSAR, Dr. Ayman Owieda.

Despite limited internet and electricity access in Gaza due to the Israeli blockade and bombardment of infrastructure, two accepted Concordia students currently living in Gaza were able to connect with CJLO news for interviews. Fatoom and Ahmad have had their last names protected for personal security purposes. They both told CJLO about their lives as they wait for the visa process to proceed.

Representatives from the IRCC would not provide an interview but pointed to a statement explaining that each individual case is being processed but is complex.

Third time’s the charm. At the end of the winter semester, my friend had convinced me to come see her friend’s band play at Casa del Popolo—not knowing at all what their sound was, except for the fact that this friend had said the band was “glam-rock esque.” I had immediate visions of Kiss, with their loud makeup and frequent tongue protrusions. I remember not knowing what to expect; the unknown lay before my ears, and I was vaguely uncomfortable. We were preparing for a certain amount of wincing and had hung close to the wall. The band, all except the lead singer, began to play a rousing cacophony, and I wondered if this was some sort of instrumental group or something. But then, Lulu emerged from the crowd. I hadn’t caught a glimpse of them before the show, but once I saw the laced-up corset, the hoop earrings grazing the tops of their shoulders, and that platinum-blonde, dishevelled hair, I had a feeling my ears were about to be rocked off. 

Since first seeing Lulu perform, I was caught.  

And here I stand, at Foufounes (my very first time at the venue) to watch the band play their final show on The Tolling Belle tour, severely tipsy.  

Before even arriving at the venue, I was anxious about being on time: okay, the show is from eight to eleven forty-five, gotta be there by seven thirty when the doors open. I had somehow accepted that the band was going to play for three hours and have no openers. A rookie move. I took a ride to my friend’s place, and kept my shoes on, thinking we were dashing immediately out. To my surprise, she wasn’t pressed for time. Odd. I decided to let go of my worries and let her and her roommate decide when we would leave, mostly because I couldn’t handle the pressure. This suspension of control is foreign to me. When I first heard Lulu perform, I suspended control over my body. I let the drums pound in my sternum, let my feet tap-tap to their own volition. I let my arms sway about me—careful not to spill any beer. The riffs felt like static in the darkness, cropping up every so often. I thought I had to soak up all of my observations of the set deep inside my mind’s eye and somehow view it all from afar. Instead, I’m left with snippets of images and melodies.  

My friends and I stop for a smoke on Saint-Catherine. I see large, yellow letters: O U F O U. I can’t make out the entire thing. Strange. I wonder why we’ve stopped here. I can make out a drill beat and an accompanying guitar. Right: the venue. We puff along, yawning here and there because we all seem to be on the same page of exhaustion—for the moment. I turn to my other friend when I see a tall, blond person approaching us. I recognize their face but don’t recall their name. They offer a smile at our little  group: “If you’re here right now, you must be coming to see our set, hey?” That’s when I realize that this is Lulu—outside of business hours, when they aren’t belting into a mic. I hadn’t recognized them without the dark makeup and half-bare chest. They chomp away at a shawarma, dish out their nice-to-meet-you’s and stroll away. 

I recall a purple spotlight lighting Lulu’s face as they sang their ballad tune during the set. I can still see it: the single droplet of sweat that dislodged itself from their nose, swallowing the light like a crystal.  Kind of a rocker moment. Lulu’s corset was sliding down, and they, uninterested in hoisting it back up.  

The show ranged from smooth tempos gliding over the crowd to high energy beats—from swaying gently, linking arms with my friends, to a mosh that was led by Lulu hopping off stage and shoving those closest to them. The balance of it all (having already heard this set twice before) still steered my attention to the striking sounds of guitars and bass. I was still mesmerized by the complex percussion and still found myself, a smile plastered onto my face, bopping my head in the way I only really do for rock.  

Lulu Lamontagne’s sound feels like dark velvet embedded with spikes. Brassy melodies pierced with vibrant crescendos. There’s an essence of DIY tied to the band. Minimal bells and whistles, but lots of drama, in the purest of senses. The drama of having your lead singer emerge from an anticipatory audience once the instruments begin playing and having them leave before they’ve finished performing is theatrical. I’m sure many musicians before Lulu have done exactly this, but as I have not seen it for myself, it leaves me imagining the band as these phantoms that come to rock your house and then sultrily vanish into the dark.  

I recall bursts of expressions that Lulu conjured during the set. It was pulled straight from the opera.  Fluttering fingers encasing their face—flashes of Edvard Munch’s paintings—and I found myself likening Lulu to art I’ve studied.  

One of their slower songs plays, and my friend wraps her arms around my shoulders. Lulu croons. Before the song began, they prefaced by saying the song was going to speak to a deeply personal problem, the curse of being terribly beautiful. A problem we all have, they added with a wink. The chorus comes along: it must be you, it must be you, it must be you, and the crowd all points at each other, the recipients of pointed fingers alternating throughout the repetitions. It must be all for us: the beneficiaries of sound, bound for an hour.

What you get from Akiva Shaffer’s The Naked Gun is a non-stop stream of laughs from your fellow audience members at a set of some of the most mindless jokes. And the best part is that you will be laughing along to the cacophony. This reboot not only brings back comedy legend Leslie Nielsen’s style, but the whole genre of satirical comedy that has not been in theatres for a good decade.

The film knows no bounds to who or what they play a gag on. From the on-the-nose billionaire Musk/Bezos villain to the format of filmmaking itself by having Liam Neeson literally ‘poke’ fun at the fourth wall, The Naked Gun channels the identity of everything that made Leslie Nielsen’s works so digestible (even among its stomach-churning crudeness). It is a profoundly dumb comedy that can bring out at least a few laughs from anyone in the audience. And the film itself is highly aware of how dumb it is, of course! What’s better than one penis joke? How about ten guys getting punched in the groin in a row! Bam! Bam! Bam!

I could point to the many pop culture references that pervade the 84-minute runtime as inhibiting the film’s shelf life, but this revival of the satirical-spoof comedy showcases exactly why we need a revival of movies like the Austin Powers franchise or Spaceballs (already in the works). Riffing off in-the-know jokes from pop culture allows an audience to laugh together at everything that is topically ridiculous. These films command the audience to say “Yes, we are laughing at you, Bill Cosby”. You can experience right now what seeing the Scary Movie franchise (also set for a new installment in 2026) at the time of their respective releases, before its references lost ground.

Of course, these jokes would be nothing without Liam Neeson’s on-screen persona of detective Frank Drebin Jr. Over the many years of Taken and Taken 2, Neeson has carefully crafted this rough and troubled, mysterious figure that translates so easily into satire. As is characteristic of Leslie Nielsen’s films, Neeson can deliver the most ridiculous of lines and quips with an all too serious (don’t call me Shirley) mien. Physically, too, Neeson’s stunt scenes carry an effortless blend of his experience in action movies immersed into a comedic setting.

Accompanying Neeson is Pamela Anderson playing the glitzy Beth Davenport. Aside from being the receptacle and subject of Neeson’s raunchy remarks, Anderson brings an equally coarse performance and humour. She takes on a role as something resembling a femme fatale, which is immediately subverted by the silliest of scat jazz performances you will ever have the privilege of watching. 

From Nielsen to Neeson, The Naked Gun franchise is an exhibit for the necessity of satirical comedy. This installment is a short and easy watch for some unadulterated summer fun. Out now in theatres, I wholeheartedly recommend it if you find yourself dawdling through your summer break like I have been.