Montreal – If you had listened to our podcast, you would know that both Wade and Brian had suggested I go see a Toronto based band called the “Sunparlour Players” in Pop Montreal. This was before they called me a whiner. Bitches. Seeing how I hold their Canadian-Indie music opinions in high regard, I decided to risk it all and take my friends to see this band for their Pop Montreal showcase on Saturday. So you had two people from Toronto, visiting Montreal, taking two other people, who are from Toronto but moved to Toronto this year, to a show in Montreal,featuring a band from Toronto.
The show was a at a placed called Cagibi‘s, located in a neighborhood known as “The Plateau” or maybe “Le Plateau”.
I think it’s the hipster area of Montreal. Let me tell you, Cagibi’s is a fantastic place. I was expected a dark and dingy bar similar to the Horseshoe, but you know what Cagibi is? It’s like this hipster coffee shop/bar that features old school furniture that seem to not care whether they are in proper shape or not, board games that had probably been there for a decade and creaky wooden floor. My best comparison to this place would be the restaurant Aunties and Uncles, if it was a lot bigger, and served beer.
I only had one real complaint about the place. The thing about hipster joints is that the workers there are totally indifferent to things such as serving customers with any sort of efficiency. They walk around in their laid back ways, casually make the espressos or lattes or mixed drink that someone ordered, make inside jokes with other coworkers who are there, talk to their friends who are at some table, then finish the customer order. For a person who is used to efficiency, such laissez-faire attitude to service just bugs the beejesus out of me. Took us a good ten-fifteen minutes in line to get our booze. Ian and I both agreed that If we were the owner, we’d fire everyone in that store.
The Sunparlour Players have quite an interesting setup, there are three members, two of them have snare drums and are multi instrumentalist. I can’t say for the third guy because my view was obstructed. What is their type of music? I would say, good ole Canadian-esque rock and roll along the lines of mellowed out Joel Plaskett. The lead singer delivered his lines with great intensity, and switched from guitar to drum to banjo thru out the set. The other dude was even crazier, going from guitar(or bass) to accordion to drums, sometimes all over the course of one song. Words cannot do justice to their music instrument playing styles. They are like a swiss army knife of music.
The songs were all pretty strong lyric based tunes, I remember some tune that was about barley and thinking “damn, that’s Canadiana”. I then started thinking about Saskatchewan. Maybe Brian will leave a comment with more info on the band.
I really enjoyed the show despite the fact that I did not know any of the bands material beforehand and also, despite the fact that the venue was overcrowded to the point where I was thinking it was a fire hazard (i had already plotted my route to the nearest door, and who I would have to push/run over to get there). It was definitely an intimate affair, and the band’s music style definitely catered to this type of show.