First, Oval wasn't there, maybe Mr. Popp was caught in the craziness of
the St-Laurent street's annual sidewalk sale. The Eternals made the
first part instead. They were entertaining, but no revelation. The
singer looked like Ben Harper with more hair(?!) and the sound reminded
me of the softer side of Swervedriver. A fair show.
Then it was time for Tortoise.
Well maybe it was just me but I must say the show was extremely
professional. The band couldn't be more concentrated on the scene and I
can't think of any other word to describe the work of the sound engineer
than brilliant. He was all over the place and played a big part in the
show (making weird sounds with a tube and working those little knobs).
I think Ninja's Jeff can say the same thing (saw you just in front of
the console)...
Basically, they covered pretty much all the songs on their last 2 albums
(Millions now... and TNT). There was little place for
improvisation/different versions, as every song was an exact replica of
the original version. But that was no disappointment, as the technique
was so precise and the sounds were so perfect that you don't want it to
be different.
The crowd was pretty quiet, though, and that is unusual in Montreal.
Shows usually end after an hour and a half, and then the band comes back
for an encore (2-3 songs). But they came back 3 times, even with little
effort from the crowd. It felt like Tortoise had put us to sleep
because although everybody wanted them to come back and play some more,
nobody could really make any noise...weird.
Anyways their last song I couldn't recognize. An excellent track, with
a lot of heavy drum and synth sounds, more on the *rock* side. Anybody
know on what album this one could be? New album maybe?
In all, a very good show, no surprises, just excellent music.
Sebastien Dalphond