Weekend Round-Up: Shows, Shows & Soup!

Friday: Being that I was starting to get a little homesick because I realized I wouldn't be going home for Xmas, I made a date with myself to go see The Evaporators at the Mint Records showcase at Bar St-Laurent 2. Conveniently the bar is a ten minute walk from my house so I spent the evening tidying up and then trundled down just in time to catch Wax Mannequin, a one man prog-rock band, which is exactly as ridiculous and awesome as it sounds.

Next up was The Buttless Chaps, I'd been hearing about for ages but had never been to see. About half-way through their set I noticed someone in the corner who looked strangely familiar. I'd expected to run into some Vancouver ex-pats so I made a point of introducing myself. Turns out she used to work at my local comic book store on Main Street and had been living in Montreal for two years. Just before the second to last act we zipped up to St-Viateur for fresh hot bagels (nom, nom, nom), then nipped back in to finish the show, then exchanged numbers so we could go to movie together some time. Yeah! New friends in town!

Got back just in time to catch one of my new favourite bands (at least they are now, after seeing them live), The Pack A.D. Two women: one on guitar, one on drums, playing amazing striped down blues. Great energy, great sound. Totally check them out if you get the chance if you like that sort of thing.

As per usual I bounced around like an idiot to The Evaporators and I made a point of telling Nardwuar how happy I was that he was in Montreal as I was starting to get a little homesick.

Saturday: Got up hopelessly late and spent most of the day not doing very much. At about 1 PM I went on my weekly bagel run to St-Viateur bagels and stopped off briefly on the way home at the Puces POP craft fair. I had finally tried out Bagel Beaubien last week, which while closer, does not offer flax seed bagels and were kind of lackluster, comparatively. Also, I like people watching in Mile End.

Around 3 PM I finally worked up the will to run the rest of my many errands. First I headed up to Marche Jean-Talon, but got caught up talking to a co-worker and didn't notice that the market was actually closing until it was too late, so I didn't manage to actually buy anything. After that I headed down to IGA to do a quick grocery and almost left without paying. Finally, I went and cast my vote since I'd be on a train most of the 14th and wouldn't be back in Montreal until well after the polls had closed. At least I didn't screw up one task, sigh.

Heated up some leftovers and made my way out to the Drawn & Quarterly bookstore for a vernissage by Jack Dylan (he did a bunch of posters for POP Montreal this year, including an awesome Obey style series of portraits of the four major Canadian political leaders), but there was nobody there so I decided to start walking down to the Just for Laughs cabaret to meet Chris and Lee for the Black Kids show.

Being that I was super early I killed some time drinking a vanilla tea later on St-Laurent and did my best to kill time window shopping/people watching. Ended up being even earlier than I'd counted on by virtue of the fact that the opening act was no longer on the bill.

Didn't realize how hung over I actually was until I started drinking my beer and the fact that my back was killing me didn't help the fact that I felt very, very old as I looked around. I guess that's what happens when I go to see new bands in venues other than dive bars... Didn't really get into the first act, the Virgins, who, as I mentioned to Ali when she arrived, I liked better when they were called TheKillerstrokeferdinands. Opted to leave my perch for the Black Kids, and did have a good time bouncing to the lively, joyful sounds, despite being tired and decrepit.

After the show I went for a beer with Chris, Lee and Ali, despite being rather exhausted, then walked home up St-Laurent.

Sunday: Got up around 9 AM and set about being productive. Went up to Marche Jean Talon and bought a ridiculous amount of vegetables, including some weird broccoli like thing that looked like an angry coral that Chris had dared me to buy the night before. As no one had called me back about going to Puces POP I decided to focus on my culinary plans and set about making 2 kinds of soup and a giant batch of chili. My freezer is now fully stocked for at least two weeks worth of delicious and nutritious lunches (not to mention thrifty!)

Then, to close off my POP Montreal weekend, MC and I went to the Cartune Xprez show, a cartoon-music-performance from the minds of Hooliganship. Difficult to describe, but definitely entertaining. Also, the last part was in 3D, which was super fun. I opted to keep my glasses in anticipation of my Mike Relm DVD, courtesy of the best sister ever since he played in Vancouver but won't be coming to Mtl.

Weekend Round Up: Improv, Opera and Walking. Lots of Walking.

Friday: Got charmed into going to another All Stars! improv show with Alain and MC at Theatre St-Catherine, which was sadly rather disappointing. The crazy homeless man who kept interjecting/playing with crinkly plastic bags didn't help much, but luckily he left half-way through. It was an intriguing format, but like with most improv it really depends on the players and the night and it just kinda felt like things were a little "off". Also, I was exhausted and nodded off a couple of times. Never a good sign.

Yet, despite my weariness I was determined not to be a complete wimp and so we joined Alain and MC on a walk up St-Laurent to take in some of the F-1 street sale action. Had fun laughing at the Eurotrash and L coveted the twice baked potatoes. Ended up walking all the way home from St-Catherines street, which didn't quite take as long as you'd think, and passed out almost immediately.

Saturday: We were supposed to go L's friends cottage just outside of Ottawa so L could get some practice driving, but I was having a very bad day so we opted to stay home. Called Alain and MC to see what they were up to and after a quick breakfast at a cute little cafe in Mile End we walked down to Mont-Royal to meet them. Turns out Mont-Royal was also closed for street-sale action so I loaded up on cheap cotton undies, half-priced organic cosmetics, not to mention free yogurt (yum!).

After a couple of hours of that we went back to Alain and MC's place to have a sit and Alain whipped up some coffee smoothies for everybody, although I had to abstain for the good of my digestive system. While sitting on the patio L thought better of his baked potato for dinner plan and we opted to go to the awesome Mexican place Alain had mentioned the night before. I got a veggie burrito and horchata, which was a little grainier than I was used to, but still super yummy.

Post dinner we continued down St-Laurent towards St-Catherines so that we could take in a little Crescent St action before hitting Place-des-Arts for Madame Butterfly Under the Stars. However, once we got downtown we realized we didn't have as much time as we'd thought so we decided to just grab a beer at Benelux before the opera. I grabbed an apricot cream ale, while L was seduced by the gold medal winning rye beer.

Being that the boys were a)slow drinkers, b)trying to find reasons to procrastinate, MC and I headed off to PDA alone. It wasn't 'till we got there and saw the sea of lawn chairs that we realized how ill prepared we were. We had a mere 5 minutes to find a spot on the concrete by the far right side of the stage to park our bums. Luckily I had a sweater to sit on for a bit of tail bone cushioning, other were not as lucky.

Despite a restless first act, L did manage to get into it. I was impressed by the fact that they'd managed to find a Japanese soprano to play Cio-Cio San, not just the usual white chick with too much eye make-up. When it was all over I asked L what he thought of his first opera, and his response was, "they were all such jerks, except Mme. Butterfly," which, in my opinion sums things up quite nicely.

After the opera we wandered up towards Crescent, but things were starting to wind down and I was getting super tired so we walked to the Metro and called it a night.

Sunday: L had tried to find us a pool, being that it was yet again, crazy hot; but sadly was unsuccessful. We almost ended up at Parc Jean-Drapeau, but at the last minute I convinced him that we should to to the Tam-Tam. He called our friends Andrea and Mark and they agreed to meet us there. We opted to walk the 20 mins to Mont-Royal park through Mile End so we could grab some fancy groceries for a picnic, a concept L seemed to be having quite a bit of difficulty grasping as it had obviously been a while since he had just hung out in a park.

After our mini-feast of sparking blueberry lemonade, whole wheat baguette, guyere chese, summer sausage and hummus I took L on a tour of the sites. In addition to the drumming hippies and the guys (and girls this time) beating each other with swords there were circus arts and capoera and a girl swinging from a giant sheet tied to a tree. L. was also shocked at the number of people drinking in public, but as usual everyone was so chill about it it wasn't a big deal.

On our way home we got caught in a sudden deluge, and while it was still very warm I cannot say I was all that comfortable being that soggy. Luckily it let up enough for us to grab some Portuguese chicken in Mile End which we happily scarfed while watching yet another installment of Buffy. Since L had to be on set quite early the next day we called it an early night, but not before switching our duvet for our summer quilt.