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I am extremely late in writing this review. I believe that the concert blew me away too much for me to write about it immediately the next day. I'm not sure how much of it is dew to the excellent tickets I had (5th row on the floor). One thing is for sure, as I entered the stadium and saw the huge stage, that resembled a giant silver roller coaster, I knew I was in for something grandiose.

First of all, my biggest fear was how the sound was going to be at the Stade Olympique. This facility has a bad reputation when it comes to concerts. But after a few seconds into the bands first song Behind the Lines my fears were gone. Even the next day, all the local papers wrote about how great the sound was.

The band had no opening act and they played for close to two and a half hours. After a couple of songs, Phil Collins told the crowd that they would be playing songs from every era of the bands repertoire. Surely they played songs that pleased everybody. The songs they played segued into one another quite well, despite jumping from one era to another. My only complaint were the ballads that they played. Not because I did not like them, I mean some of these songs are among my favorites like Ripples. It was just because there is no intimacy in a stadium filled with almost 50, 000 screaming fans.

One of the highlight of the show was the drum solo duo with Phil and Chester Thompson. The two played together for quite a while in synchronization which led into the band joining in into Los Endos. It was a huge crowd pleaser. As the song drew to an end, Phil ended up on the giant screen and you could see on his face that he had given all he had. He looked exhausted with the sweat going down his forehead.

My favorite moment was when they played I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe). At this point the everybody was singing the chorus. I even ended up signing with the people behind my row that I did not even know. During the end of the song Phil did his famous tambourine skit were he would bang it all over his body.

At this point I realized what a great showman Phil is. He really knows how to work a crowd. He was like that all through the show. He also spoke French almost during the whole show. Which really pleased the Montreal fans.

The best part is that I can relive these memories thanks to themusic.com which recored every show of the Genesis tour and made it available to buy on there website.

Unfortunately I had to resort to taking photos from my cell phone, because my digital camera wasn't charged properly. Therefor, the pictures I took left little to be desired. At least the festival was great with a positive atmosphere in the air. Also, I am not sure if it was because of the great weather we had, but I believe there was a lot more people who attended this year.

I arrived just a little past three and got to see most of the Editors's set. I was unfamiliar with there music and had not hear a lot about them. They sounded at times like a cross between Interpol/U2. The singer was a little strange and had a large presence on stage. He even reminded me a little of David Byrne.

The first artist that I knew and wanted to see were Stars. I had a pretty good view of their entire set. From the looks of her hair, singer/guitarist Amy Millan looked like she had just woken up. They spoke quite a bit to the crowd and seemed very happy to be there. During the few first songs, they bumped into each other a little on stage. But once they got settle in they definitely did not disappoint. The crowd was loving every second of it. Highlights for me were the songs Set Yourself On Fire and One More Night.

Next was Feist, she went on immediately after Stars on the next stage. So I was unable to get a good view at first. She showed up with a hat and was in a very humble mood. Since I am very familiar with both Let It Die and The Reminder I knew all of her songs. Most of her set was chill, but she shook it up with Past In Present and especially during Sea Lion Woman.

For Damien Rice I was practically front row. I was expecting a performance similar to the overall mood on his album O, but I was wrong. Maybe his latest record, which I have not heard, is a little rockier. Because, although there were a few moments where he was mellow, most of it rocked out. It was very apparent during Volcano and a especially towards the end of the show during the great drum/percussion solos. Most of his set was similar fashion to I Remember which he played an almost apocalyptic version during the end. I was really impressed from his performance. He gave it all on stage. For me, he was the highlight of the day.

I did not stay for the whole set of The Smashing Pumpkins. I was very far from the stage and only heard five or six songs before. I wanted to stay longer but since I was not close and my legs were exhausted from standing up for almost six/seven hours, I left. Unfortunately, the band had a few technical problems in the beginning. Both Billy Corgan's microphone/guitar went off for a good couple of seconds. From where I was I was not sure if he noticed, because he did not stop playing or singing. He also did a rendition of The Star-Spangled Banner/O Canada. From the songs that I knew and got to hear were : Bullet With Butterfly Wings, Hummer and Tonight, Tonight.

I enjoyed my day immencially, My only regret was not to get to see Peter Bjorn and John since they announced their cancellation just the previous week.

After many weeks of anticipation, I finally got my hands on the latest The Flaming Lips dvd : “U.F.O.'s at the zoo”. It documents the bands triumphed return to there home city of Oklahoma on their 2006 tour.

The film was recorded just a couple of weeks after the show I attended of them here in Montreal. Therefor, there are many similarities. Except this on a grander scale. Instead of a large screen behind the band projecting images during the concert, they have a giant U.F.O. on stage. Kind of like what Parliament had on their 1970's tours. Also, the crowd here is much bigger and wilder than on the Montreal show.

You could see that the band and the crowd are happy to be reunited. The energy of that really adds to the show. The band played a great set, with many tracks from their three latest albums. As their trademark there was a lot of confetti, costumes and props.

The pace of the dvd is a little different than what I have been used to. There are a couple of songs played than it cuts briefly to get an inside look of the show : Interviews with fans, the band setting up the stage, etc. It's never annoying and actually works pretty well.

For 20 Canadian dollars I am extremely happy with the purchase of this great document. And I recommend it to every The Flaming Lips fan. Highlight for me were : A Spoonful Weighs a Ton, Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots Pt. 1 and My Cosmic Autumn Rebellion.

Thu 26 Jul – The Police


Finally my first concert in a long time. It sure has been a long time since I felt powerful amps blowing sweet rock music towards a crowd. I really did not know what to expect from The Police. I was too young to have seen them live and I also never saw footage of a live show from them.

The band was in top form and felt very at ease on stage. I was impressed at how great musicians the are. It was only the three of them on stage. I was expecting maybe another on keyboards, especially for their latter songs. Stewart Copeland on percussions/drums was really awesome at filling up those blanks. And their raw music never felt like there was missing anything. Andy Summers was fantastic and could have shown a lot of the current bands a thing or two about playing the guitar. As for Sting, what can I say, just his presence on stage alone was magical. But, I would also add that his voice was just impeccable.

If I was to describe the concert in on sentence it would be “Let the music do the talking”. Last night was a band who were on stage with a laid back attitude who had no extraordinary special affect, lights or any gimmicks at all. There were alone on a decent stage dishing out their incredible songs which was the eye candy of the show.

No one there was left unhappy, the band played all their hits. Some were slightly rearranged but never to a point where they were unrecognizable. Stand out track for me were Synchronicity II, Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic and The Bed's Too Big Without You. Even a wonderful track like Every Breath You Take, which is overplayed on the radio, last night sounded like if it was the first time I had heard it.

To conclude, for a band who was absent for over two decades, last night they seemed like they were never gone.

I haven't written in my journal since December. And now the summer is just beginning and I could not be more exited. I have two concerts and one festival on the horizon.The Police, Genesis and the Osheaga festival. I will most certainly review every single one of them. All three will be totally different experiences and I cannot tell which one I will enjoy the most. Also this overdose of live music in my ears is well overdue because It has been a long time since I've to a show.

P.S. I recently bought a great DVD : Kraftwerk Minimum-Maximum. It's difficult to explain how amazing it is. For those who have hesitate, the purchase was worth every penny.

I recently received The Beatles Love album as a gift for Christmas. I know that many of you posted reviews about it, but I just could not resist writing in my two cents.

First of all, I am definitely not one of those who believes that what has been done is sacrilegious. Please, keep in mind that none of the music is mixed with anything other but what the Beatles have done themselves. The album sounds great, it's refreshing and fun to listen to. Like many my favorite moment is Within You Without You/Tomorrow Never Knows. I know it did not take a genius to figure out that the two songs just goes so well together :) Actually my major complaint about the record is that ideas like that are less exploited as you get closer to the end. I mean if mixing songs like that together is the concept of the record let's not deliver something half baked.

As for the song selection they are obviously are all great, but the representation of their work is a little uneven. The emphasis here is their latter work. At least the songwriting efforts of each Beatle is well distributed.

Still, I believe that any original studio album from the band is superior to this. But I don't own 1962-1966: The Red Album, 1967-1970: The Blue Album or any other compilation from the band. So I guess this will be my sort of "Greatest Hits".

Over the weekend I purchased the Kiss DVD's Kissology Vol. 1: 1974-1977. I am not a huge Kiss fan and for a very long time the only album of theirs I owned was Greatest Kiss. About a year ago I watched VH1 Classic Album's about Alive!. I was so impressed that shortly I bought the record.

Since then I have been curious to get a glimpse at what the whole phenomena was all about. Let me tell you I was not disappointed. To see the band live during that period is something else. The DVD's showcase the band in their beginning. Which is the period I am mostly familiar with thanks to the two records I own. The four members are energetic and their stage presence is something quite unmatched. Thanks to the Alive! I already knew their music was great, but the DVD's show how much their performance was as important as their music.

As for the content of the product : there is 2 DVD's plus a bonus one. Four concerts, many TV specials and other goodies. There is only one thing that I found a little annoying but understandable. Since this is a document of a three year period, many of the same songs are performed dunrig many of the concerts. Songs like Firehouse, Black Diamond, Cold Gin, etc are played 3 or 4 times.

This is definitely recommended for hardcore fans or newbies like me that are intrigued by the band.

Death Cab for Cutie - Wednesday November 1st 2006

Well last night I saw Death Cab for Cutie with opening act Ted Leo and the Pharmacists at the Montreal Metropolis. I got to admit I really did not know what to expect.

Let's start with the opening act. Well for starters the crowd really did not pay much attention to them. This really was a drag. I had to concentrate real hard to ignore all the chatter to enjoy the band. They played very tight, really rocked and delivered. My only disappointment was that they played very few songs from the only album that I was familiar with: Hearts of Oak.

As for the headliners, well now the crowds chatter started to dissipate and they really got into the show. The band seemed to be in great form. What stuck me to be odd was that they seemed like they were in a rush. One song would end and the next one began immediately after. This is not a bad necessarily a bad thing as for they played a lot of songs. Another thing is that their stage presence was missing something. I could not put my finger on it, but there was just something lacking. Besides that the show was great. The selection of tracks they played were excellent. I even enjoyed their songs that I had never heard (I only own Transatlanticism and Plans). If I had to choose my favourite moment, it would be during the end when Ben Gibbard joined in on drums on one of the songs.

As for that a great time was enjoyed by all :)