Montreal – After the greatness that was the Darren Hayman show, we were all a bit dazed. What to do now? The original plan was to watch Ten Kens, but a quick google map check indicated that the walk was a little longer then expected. There was a quick decision to be made, the last train was around 1:30, it was 1:00. So either get to the subway station and go home, or rock it and pay the regrettedly high taxi fee. Well, when on vacation (or when it’s saturday night), you really have no other choice but to rock it.
A little background first: Earlier in the night, at the Sun Parlour Players show, Mark had chatted up a bunch of hipster girls who were probably just over the legal drinking age. After some quick introductions in which one of the girls nonchalantly said “I love art”**, they let us know that they were going to see The Magic at a bar just off Mont-Royal around midnight. Seeing how we had no plans, it was decided that it would be a good idea to check out this show (which they had declared would be “totally awesome”)/see if run into the hipsters again (maybe the girl can make other general declarations, like “I love literature” or something). Unfortuntely, the show was at capacity and despite the flashing of the Pop Montreal media pass card, we were not allowed in.
At this point, it was around 1:30 and the options for music was declining by the minute. Luckily for us, there was a bar next door called “Quai Des Brumes“. Having no other options, we went in and was surprised to find a band setting up. The band turned out to be a montreal hip hop/acapella outfit named “Random Recipe” , which was very fitting since the fact that the Panic Manual squad was seeing them was pretty random. The band included one drummer, one bassist, one guitarist and one vocalist.
What immediately drew our attention to Random Recipe was the beat boxing. Yessir, beatboxing. One of the two female leads in the band started beatboxing, while the other girl played classical guitar and sang a high voice somewhat reminiscent of one Kate Bush. Maybe it was the fact that I was many Quebec beers into the night, but it sounded quite awesome. Most of the set involved the girl on the classical guitar singing in a pixieish way and the other girl beatboxing and then rapping in English and French. It was quite a different scene, and something that felt very Montreal (cos it was in French AND English). At this time I also realized that Montreal bars are opened til three and that there was a really nice three legged dog running around the bar. Good times.
I rather enjoyed the Random Recipe set, despite the fact that most of their songs follow the same formula, it was definitely very different from what I had listened to at a live show before. I also enjoyed the poutine with smoked meat I had after the show. I did not enjoy the the 25 dollar cab ride after though.
** “I Love Art” should be made into a t-shirt or something, we have never seen anyone bring that to a conversation before.
