I can therefore not understand how it is that groups of young men are allowed to form bands that do essentially the same thing. Our opening acts last night were unbelievable: not only was the style of music a kind of Sum-41 ripoff emo-core whatever, each of their songs began when a dude pressed a button on his laptop and the pre-recorded drums, vocals and bass kicked in. We caught both acts missing notes/vocals, and somehow the vocals and notes came through the speakers anyway. At one point, a drummer stood up and began to clap his hands along to a song, and the sound of a full drum kit came crashing out of the speakers.
This is, apparently, a very big thing with the kids today. It's "progressive" to not actually play your instruments and to sing about relationships. Nothing I could possibly say could convey my hatred for this idea.
Also, we want to send a huge big-up to Les Cowboys Fringants, a quebecois folkpunk band who actually sing in French. That's how it should be. If I were a Quebecker proud of my heritage, I'd be very alarmed to see a bunch of kids get on stage, introduce their songs in French ("Cette chanson et...") and then break immediately into whiny american-style vocals ("You said you loooooveeed meeeee....") because they want to get on English radio. Tabernac.
However, May 29th was not totally a bust, because earlier in the day we played a... get this... a high school. Seriously. Seamus's "not within 400 meters of a high school" probation period had just run out, so we managed to do 45 minutes of folk-punk for a cafeteria full of 1000 gaping 12-18 year-olds. Our lives are spectacularly weird.
More to come! Much to say about Chicoutimi, the greatest city in the entire world and Fred Simard, the greatest promoter in the entire world....
you are great!!!
ReplyDeletecarlie