(photo taken by the Dentyne Gum crew who snapped our photo and then gave us a card indicating where we can download it from. Cool!)
So after we packed the car up, we headed for Montreal. Let it be noted that in the future, if I arrange to pick up Vero from home, and then double back to pick up Carrie at the Schwarma Palace on Rideau Street, I should use my head beforehand and realize that Vero’s office of work (which she just walked 20 minutes from) is RIGHT NEXT TO THE SCHWARMA PALACE!!! Vero was not impressed that he had to bust her ass all the way home for me to drive back to her office.
After munching on an excellent schwarma, we hit the road, stopped to grab some beer (hey did you know Rickard’s has a wheat beer called Rickard’s White? It’s delish.) and kept moving.
Lucky for me, I thought about checking out craigslist.com to find some tickets to the Osheaga Festival instead of paying the $95 from the ticket booth. Sure enough, I found a guy selling his tickets at $50 a pop. BONUS!
We couldn’t get in touch with him on the phone so I headed to his pad. I knocked, I rang the doorbell, I did that again and no answer. Dang it, he must have sold the tickets on me! However, my patience won out and the guy runs out of the washroom with a towel wrapped around him.
Now, I’m not gay, but this guy definitely had a physique I was jealous of. I was laughing to myself as I knew Carrie and Vero were missing out by sitting down the street in the car. I was contemplating going to get them while he changed into some clothes but whatever. They’ve all seen hot men wrapped in towels before (aka Philipp and I).
After picking up the tickets, we headed to Philipp’s, hit the ground running with a few beer, contemplated how we could climb up to his rooftop patio considering it was under construction and the entrance was blocked, and then decided to head out into the town.
I love Montreal. It has a different vibe at night than Ottawa. We were walking down the street and I heard some excellent stand-up bass and we decided to walk over and enter a jazz club. This place was hopping with an excellent jazz band. Unfortunately for us, it was closing time and they only stayed for another song. After dancing to some oldies, we continued onto another bar called Miami (which supposedly is usually good to go to) but at that hour, there was no one so we headed out to some night club and danced the night away. Personal highlight from that evening was the guy who started dancing with us and then proceeds to throw water into his own face…along with the ice! After some good laughs, we headed home and crashed.
Man, it was a hot night in Montreal. I didn’t get too much sleep which I had to counteract somehow for the next day. It’s funny how the weather can change on a dime during September as the next night was cold.
On Saturday we got in touch with Matt and Karilee who were coming to the festival and we made plans to meet up around 5PM. After going to the Fameux Restaurant for some smoked meat sandwiches, we headed out down St. Denis to check out some vinyl record stores. Vero picked up some excellent choices, including a suggested Top Gun soundtrack!
We then headed out to H&M which was on the other side of town. After walking for awhile, we ended up in the mall, grabbed some much needed juice to replenish our strength and went into H&M. I was dismayed at first when I realized we came out all that way for nothing as it was a womens/children’s clothing only shop! However, the cashier heard our dismay and informed us the mens shop was up one level. Vero and I headed out there in search of the brown corduroy jacket that I passed up in New York City. Unfortunately for me, anything associated with clothing and New York City has a curse on it and sure enough, they did not have a size that fit me. The one I tried on was snug but I did the ‘bend over and tie your shoe’ test and it wasn’t happening.
Upset, we left and headed back home as it was getting late and I realized that I had forgotten the tickets in my car so there was no way we would make the 5PM deadline. Vero ended up heading ahead without me to meet up with Karilee, Ann and Matt.
We reached the festival grounds (which is on Parc Jean-Drapeau Island) which was home to Expo ’67. Hey, that’s forty years ago! Crazy. I saw the biosphere which was cool. The festival grounds had a slew of vendors and very cool artwork strewn about. The two main stages were set up right next to another so they didn’t have any lag time between bands. I liked this setup more than the Bluesfest setup which had a stage on the opposite end of the field. This way, you could technically plant yourself between the two stages and have a great view of both.
We watched Stars play (Montreal band) who were alright. They picked up near the end. We then were watching Feist but decided to tour the grounds for some excitement and sat down for awhile. I was anxious to buy a Pumpkins t-shirt but we don’t live in a world of cheap tour shirts any longer and they were $45. I scoffed at the price and realized it wasn’t for me.
After Feist, we headed to the Vice Magazine corn roast which didn’t have any corn at all! I believe that it was held in the afternoon and this was the reason for no corn upon our arrival around 7PM but the others didn’t seem to follow my line of thinking. We then stood in line forever for a steak sandwich and then headed back to find a good spot to watch the Pumpkins. We could see Damien Rice’s set from where we were standing which I enjoyed instead of just hanging out for an hour without anything to do. Unfortunately, we misjudged the weather and a cold snap hit us and Vero was super cold. I think she ended up with a cold the next day. 🙁
The Pumpkins rocked and then we left and headed back home where Philipp and I watched a hilarious Ali G video (must have been a compilation of his British show) while Carrie and Vero slept. The next day we toured around the area to get some poutine (22 different varieties! BEAUTY!) and checked out a few record shops. I found this great one around the block from Philipp’s place although they didn’t have any Pumpkins vinyl that I was in search for.
In the end, another great weekend was had in Montreal. I love that place. Thanks to Philipp and Jean for the great company.