Montreal – So there I was in Montreal for the Hot Chip show last Wednesday at the Metropolis. Before I talk about Hot Chip, let me first tell you about the Metropolis. Even though I haven’t yet been to many of Montreal’s live music venues. I can tell you one thing, the Metropolis rocks!

The Metropolis is an amazing old building with a balcony. It’s large enough to host a decent crowd but can still offer a relatively intimate live music experience. First constructed in 1884 as a skating rink, the Metropolis has also moonlighted as a movie theatre, a theatre house, a discotheque, and even a porn house! Is there anything this building can’t do? The answer is no.

So anyway, before I talk about Hot Chip, let me next tell you about Pop Montreal. Pop Montreal is a great 5-day international music festival in our favourite sister city: Montreal. There’s all sorts of great live music over the city in great venues. After experiencing Toronto’s music festivals like CMW and NXNE, I have to say that my first impression of Pop Montreal was that it was a relatively grassroots and low-key affair. Most of the venues I went to were extremely intimate, and the tickets were very accessible in terms of price and availability.

OK, so how was Hot Chip? The show was certainly one of the more anticipated shows at Pop Montreal this year. This London-based band showcased their brand of very danceable rock to a crowd of enthusiastic fans. I kind of wish that “Over and Over”, being an amazingly fun song to dance to, would have occurred somewhere later in the set (or in the encore) instead of mid-set. But apparently they always do that, so I suppose they’re not going to mess with a formula that works. Their encore included a rendition of “Nothing Compares to You”. A nice little retro throwback combined with sly wink that this up and coming band doesn’t take itself too seriously. Nicely done.

Metropolis: 5/5
Hot Chip: 4.5/5
Pop Montreal: 4.5/5

Toronto – Next up in the TIFF saga is It Might Get Loud. A documentary by Davis Guggenheim about the electric guitar and three master guitarists that have helped to contemporize the instrument and make it accessible for their respective generations. This is a great doc for any musicianado that would love to see their guitar heroes at work and play, which is typically the same thing.

The guitarists in question are: Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page, U2’s The Edge, and The White Stripes’ Jack White. The documentary follows their paths as they discover the guitar and what it can do for them. It traces their transition from guitarist to musician as they struggle to create the songs that transform their band and then define their own unique sound.

All three guitarists open up about their experiences and their love of the guitar. This makes for a really genuine and genuinely funny film to watch. When asked what will happen when the three guitarists finally meet, Jack White responds, “I don’t know, a fist fight?”. He then later admits that he wants to meet The Edge and Jimmy Page so that he can “trick them into teaching me their tricks”. During the Q&A after the film, Jack White was asked to pick a single guitar to bring to a remote island. His answer: “Jimmy Paige’s guitar.”

In addition to seeing Jimmy Page’s fantastic guitar skills, we also get a glimpse of his fantastic air guitar skills while listening to records. Another classic moment was The Edge playing his Edge chords through his fancy Edge pedals and equipment. In a moment of straight-talking brevity, he says, “If you take away all the effects, all I’m playing is this”, then adopts a silly face and plays the simple chord he had been playing all along. He admits that sometimes he spends all day searching for a particular sound. If asked to summarize his day’s work on an acoustic guitar, it would be laughably simple.

This doc is a must see for guitarists, a should see for musicians, and a see for everyone else.

It Might Get Loud: 4/5
It Might Get Loud (if you’re a musician): 4.5/5
It Might Get Loud (if you’re a guitarist): 5/5

Toronto – The Toronto International Film Festival is in full swing now. It’s a great opportunity to check out movies from all over the globe. You can watch films before they are available to the general public. Often you get to do it in the presence of the actors and the director, and then ask them questions afterwards. Not bad for $15-20 a pop (if you buy a pack, and don’t go see the uber special gala presentations that is).

For the stargazers among you, this is also a great time to look for your favourite celebrities hovering around the city. Now is the best time to grab a latte in Yorkville and look for stars. Then, when you notice them, you can pretend that you barely noticed them and it’s no big deal. This will make you feel good and lead you to believe that you are on the same level as the Dustin Hoffman’s, or even the Richard Gere’s of the world. I swear this could be an entry on Stuff White People Like.

Anyway, the first film up for review is Soul Power. A documentary about a music festival held in Africa in 1974 that was to culminate with a boxing match. The year was 1974, and the festival was in Africa. The place was Kinhasa, and the boxers were Muhammad Ali and George Foreman. The mix in question was soul music and boxing.

The story starts off firmly in documentary mode. We see the musicians getting organized, the organizers getting the musicians, the planners organizing the organizers, and the musicians playing the organs. At this point we don’t know if everything will actually work out on schedule. Then about halfway through the documentary, the concert starts and the gears shift from documentary to music film with loose ends practically dangling off the silver screen.

The saving grace of this doc is the footage. It’s simply spectacular. Highlights for me include a relatively young B.B. King playing The Thrill is Gone, as well as a virile and mustachio’ed James Brown doing his thing. This documentary may lack resolution and a storyline of the concert know as Zaire ’74, but it certainly delights with fantastic music footage from an amazing concert. Time well spent for soul music lovers.

Soul Power: 3.5/5
Soul Power Footage: 4.5/5

So as Ricky was saying, Animal Collective didn’t really connect with the Rogers Picnic crowd. Fortunately their set was followed up by Montreal-based Chromeo. This band’s dance friendly brand of electronic & guitar sounds was an immediate crowd pleaser. Even though it was raining pretty hard at this point, it was the first time that I felt that people were acting, well, festive, at this day-long festival. Big ups to the fans that wore rubber boots and embraced the mud and rain.

Tokyo Police Club was up next. I really like a few songs from Tokyo Police Club, like “Your English is Good”, and I was glad to hear it live. I’d say this band put on a pretty good show, and got pretty into it. I was very impressed with the sheer energy coming out of keyboardist Graham Wright. I love it when musicians lose themselves in their music.

But the big highlight for most of the crowd was Cat Power. This woman owns herself in way that is both rare and beautiful. Seeing her sing up close was pretty amazing. She puts so much of herself into her music, she seems so vulnerable, yet at the same time, exudes a “this me, this is who I am, deal with it” aura about her stage presence that was fascinating to see.

So, now let me get to my rant about big-screen TV’s and text-messaging. There were two large TV screens on both sides of the stage showing a live-feed of the performers. I suppose this is a pretty standard feature of rock shows nowadays. What was new to me was that the bottom of the TV was reserved for a stock-ticker type deal where people could send text messages and get them displayed in more or less real time. This made for a weird concert experience. Now I admit that sometimes people had really funny things to say, like “no one is safe until nerd prosecution is over”. But by and large, the screens were cluttered with inane texts from hapless youth.

Unfortunately for me, I am eternally enchanted and absorbed with shiny or moving objects. I was transfixed throughout. I just couldn’t help but be engrossed. This, with the addition of my complete inability to multi-task, meant that I spent more time reading the damn stock ticker than listening to the music. So I would say thumbs down on the ticker, but I would say thumbs up that Rogers Picnic seemed to make efforts to make this a green event.

The last show was City and Colour. Unfortunately, perhaps because it was Sunday night, there was a mass exodus after Cat Power. We joined suit, but I left pretty happy with the live music I had absorbed throughout the day.

Vampire Weekend: 4/5
Chromeo: 4.2/5
Tokyo Police Club: 3.8/5
Cat Power: 4.5/5
Stock Ticker: 1/5
Green Policy: 5/5
Rogers Picnic: 3.7/5

Toronto – Big Bad Voodoo Daddy was formed in 1989 by singer/guitarist Scotty Morris. It started as a three-piece, but quickly grew into its current big band lineup. They were at the forefront of the swing-craze of the mid-90’s, and were popularized by their appearance in the movie Swingers with songs like “You and me and the bottle makes 3 tonight (baby)” and “Go daddy-o”. You’d recognized them if you heard ‘em.

They appeared at the Nathan Phillips Square main stage, and the result was a high-energy show. People who were in their late-teens and early twenties during the 90’s swing-craze were dusting off those swing dance-moves that they paid good money for and thought they’d never get to use. The band was tight, and provided all the ingredients for a good time. They all wore cool cat jazz suits, and the brass played in front of 30’s style jazz stands. Classy.

The music was good. It wasn’t inspiring, but it was solid, tight, and full of energy. Big Bad Voodoo Daddy is still at it, cranking out the big band and doing what they do best: saluting and re-creating the old-school dance jazz that was so popular in the 30’s and 40’s. There were two highlights for me. The first was Scotty giving the crowd a history lesson about the Cotton Club, a famous prohibition-era NYC jazz club, with a salute to the late great Cab Calloway. The second was the bassist Dirk Schumaker. He looked like he was having so much fun spinning that stand-up bass of his and playing music that he loves. I was thoroughly envious of the man’s joie de vivre.

If I could have bottled some of it, I’d be set for life. 4/5.

[Note: this review was written by Brian, an avid Ahmad Jamal enthusiast well acquainted with Ahmad's discography.]

Toronto - Even if you haven’t heard of legendary pianist Ahmad Jamal, you’ve definitely heard the unmistakable sound he popularized.

In late fifties, Jamal’s understated, eloquent style influenced scores of other artists, famously inspiring Miles Davis’ during his First Great Quintet period. In more recent years, Jamal has been rediscovered by a new generation of artists: he’s been sampled on countless hip-hop records (Nas’ “The World is Yours”, Common’s “Resurrection”).

At his packed Festival Mainstage show earlier this week, the legendary Jamal put on a mesmerizing performance that found the 78-year old pianist still pushing his delicate, thoughtful sound into new directions.

He was accompanied by a stellar rhythm section consisting of his longtime bassist James Cammack, drummer James Johnson, and the odd-haired percussionist Manolo Badrena. The interplay between the latter two stole the show for me; it was exhilarating to watch them gradually evolve their patterns together into complex, crowd-rocking grooves.

I’ve been waiting for years to see Jamal perform, and his sparse, dynamic piano play was captivating to hear in person. The audience agreed with me, bringing the band back out for three standing-ovation encores. It was a treat to see Jamal continue to push his artistic boundaries well after his status as a jazz legend has been cemented.

4.5/5