White Stripes

Sept 17th, Bell Centre

This concert was a very short two days break after Pearl Jam. I knew the White Stripes a bit more. I have their precedent album Elephant and I knew most others songs from MTV france or mp3s.
Well I expected a short but intense concert in the tradition of garage bands and I wasn't disapointed. It was longer (1h40) and even wilder than I thought. Luckily even with all this electric guitar wildness the sound was way better than for pearl jam and we were much closer as you can see by the pictures.
The attendance was only half of Pearl Jam's and it gave a different athmosphere. Smaller scene, no sits on the front of it countributed to give the concert a more cozy, warmer feel. Quite surprising is the difference of popularity between the White Stripes and PJ, I think in France it would have been the other way round.

The show seemed to feature nearly all elephant songs but we had to wait for the encores to hear hit single seven nation army.
In between it was mostly heavy bluesy tunes where Jack White could show his ability to play wild solos without a backup guitar or bass and not sounding messy.
Meg has this trademark stumping style of drumming that has raised criticism. Yes it may not be exactly technically fancy but it gets the job done and helps the White Stripes have that unique sound.
Jack is nearly an orchestra all by himself, playing steel and electric guitar as well as piano, organ and Xylophone!
Well all in one it was a memorable night and the ending with Jack and Meg holding hands was very intimate and emotional.
I regret not having seen them when I had a chance in Paris now.
Well surely next time

Centre Bell, Pearl Jam Concert

One of the highlights of my first month or so in Montreal have to be the 2 concerts I went to, Pearl Jam and White Stripes. Both took place at the Bell centre, Montreal Canadiens skating rink, but still were very different.
Both concerts were my girlfriend idea, she wanted to do something special in Montreal and bought tickets from France via Admission.com I have to admit I wasn't so hot about Pearl Jam, as i remembered them from hits like Jeremy or Alive. They didn't look rebel enough for me even though they are called "grunge"
The concert took place thursday September 15, and I was very disapointed at first for 2 reasons
_ Our tickets were level 300 so we were very high above the scene, it is hard to feel like part of a concert that far
_ The sound sucked, maybe it was because we were very close to the roof but it was very noisy and unconfortable. Impossible to hear a single solo.

Fortunately I got into it somehow. Yes Pearl Jam play this uncreative grungy classic rock but 16000 die-hard fans and a 3 hours show are hard to ignore.
I was a bit surprised by the total hero worship pearl jam still had as I though they were has been. Their powerful anthems were all sung along by the fans and I wanted to sing with them even if I knew only a few songs. The show lasted for so long that it ended with the lights on at 23h30, very few people having left the building.

As for the covers played I recognized Teenage Wasteland by the Who, there were also Neil Young songs but I'm not into that kind of music.
All in one I left the building satisfied as did my girlfriend that had never heard them before.

This story continues with the White Stripes on the next article

What about French?

You would argue to me that since I am French and living in a predominently french speaking city (67.8% according to Wikipedia), I would publish my blog in French. Well that may be true but I have a few reason to do it in English.
1: I was googling in english when I had the idea
2: Montreal is definitely more English speaking than France, don't you think?
3: I am doing my internship in an English speaking company Canadian Winter (No, the fact that everybody there talk to me in French doesn't count)
4: Well I sure had a reason, I think

Introduction

Bonjour,
I am a French lad coming to Montreal for just over 4 month. Even if it's quite short i still think I may have interesting stuff to say about it. I don't care about readership or anything so updates will be when I want and on any subject I want. There is NO official topic there so I am free to talk about anything non-canadian I want.
So that's it, have fun with me on my journey in Canada.