We got the bikes down from the car, did a quick change out of work
clothes, and biked down Sherbrooke to the venue, Usine C. It was a bit
tight biking on Sherbrooke, I hoped to find an alternate route for the
other nights. We made it there, and found a bike rack right outside of the
venue, score! Locked up and went inside to get the tickets and wrist
bands, running into Ben I think as we waited in the slow but short ticket
line. Checked our bike bags and helmets and put in earplugs (so so so glad
I brought a pile of them, thogh the first night wasn't that loud), and
went into the main concert room. It was huge, a big stage at the front,
lots of open space, then the back blocked off for the sound board and the
video projection controllers. The only problem was that the floor was all
concrete, by the end of the weekend my back and feet were killing me.
We got there just in time, just past 10pm, to catch most of Terrorfakt's
set. Sparks flew everywhere as they used grinders on oil drums and
shopping carts. They also banged things with sledgehammers, but I wasn't
too impressed with the hammer-ers ability to keep time. :) It was an
entertaining show, reminiscent of concerts I'd gone to see years ago in
Toronto. Speaking of Toronto, I ran into Lee from there, we were both
hanging out in the back left corner and it was great to catch up in
little snippets throughout the weekend.
I think I had just enough time to run to the upstairs bathroom and then it
was time for Project Pitchfork. Oh, wow. I'd never heard them in concert
before, it was almost a spiritual experience. I felt like I was being
filled up with the spirit of industrial music, it was awesome. I spoke
briefly with Zoh after their set and she felt the same way. The lead
singer kept reminding me of Monk/Will, they share a slim goth/rivet head
aesthetic. The set started off fairly slow, and grew to a frenetic pace by
the end.
Interlace was up next, the only note I have is that the lead singer was
channelling the vampire from the B&W film Nosferatu. :) We ended up
leaving in the middle of this set, worn out from the long day. Biking home
(er, to Dimitri's) was much more relaxed and seemed to go a lot faster
because I knew the way. Until we got turned around and ended up biking up
to Rachel. We made our way back eventually, and stopped at the 24 hour
grocery on St. Laurent to get some raisin bread, yoghurt, juice and
granola so we'd have something in the apartment for breakfast. I kept Cris
company as he found a place up Clark to park the car out of the
no-morning-parking side.
Back to the apartment, and then we walked back out to move the car and get supper.
I had put my new patent leather Fluevog boots on for walking around, and when I poked my head into a store selling neat looking dresses, the saleswoman gave me the hard sell saying that the dresses would look perfect with my boots. Not at $400+ each, but thanks. :) We moved the car to a spot right next to the apartment, score! Then we walked over to
Le Nil Blue, an
Ethiopian restaurant that we'd spotted earlier. They weren't quite open,
it wasn't 5:30 yet, so we wanderd up the street and fell into buying CDs at a basement store.
Back to the restaurant and ... waiting. We'd hoped to
have a nice but relatively quick dinner forgetting previous experiences at
Addis Red Sea, but the food was good enough that it was worth the wait and
missing more of the concert than I'd anticipated. We walked back to the
apartment, unlocked the bikes and rode to the venue.
We got there in time for Aesthetic Perfection's set. The lead singer was
tall, skinny and bald, swearing gloves printed with hand bones and a shirt
with rib bones. He had the biggest smile I've seen in ages, and really
liked to touch his head, I was convinced that he was on something. :) But
he gave a really energetic performance, bouncing from side to side on the
stage, and pumping his fist though most of the songs. Solid dancy music.
Next up was Soman, another bald smiling dude, but his fist pumping
included snapping his fingers. Constantly, it was impressive. He seemed to
be having an awesome time, it was infectious. Unfortunately he'd decided
to spice up his one man + keyboard/laptop stage act with a couple of
dancers, and despite their scanty outfits, they just weren't very good.
One looked a bit like Cindi Lauper, the other like a suicidegirl, but they
had no rhythm. Luckily, it was fun enough to watch the guy smiling like
his face wouldn't crack. :) The music started off a bit slow and
worked it's way up to dancy.
God Module was up next, all spiky hair and gaffer tape (that kept peeling
off as the lead singer got all sweaty). They played some pretty horrific
movie clips on the screens above them, I couldn't watch them (outboard
motor propeller through an obviously fake head notwithstanding, I wasn't
in the mood for gore). The set turned into a game of God Module Says, with
all the members exhorting the audience to lift their arms, dance, sing,
etc.
Reaper was next, and with it came the first guitar to hit the stage. They
were very earnest. I didn't really like the talking singing that they had
going on, but it got better as the set went on.
Then Amduscia. The lead singer had bright red liberty spiked hair, and a
monocoluar goggle with a metal headpiece covering half of the shaved part
of his head, and a bright blue LED shining inside it. The music didn't do
too much for me, though.
And then Grendel. The lead singer paced the stage, it was almost as if
everyone had taken lessons: bounce to the left side, put leg up on
monitor, bounce to the right side of the stage, put leg up on monitor
there, repeat, embellished with fist pumping. The singer reminded me of my
old work colleague Andy, he had the same intensity as well as body type.
The songs started sounding the same after a few, so we ended up leaving.
Once Cris's bike was back in riding trim, we got dressed up and headed
toward the venue to grab some food. I had on my camo mini skirt with my
rain pants over it for modesty and just kept them on through dinner. We
went to a fairly casual Portuguese place called Barosso, and I had a good
quarter chicken and some yummy sangria. We split a half litre and I was
just a bit tipsy, the weights and measures act to my rescue. :)
We got to the venue for Cenotype's set. This was the noise night, and
pretty much my favourite night of the event. Cenotype played dancy noise.
The band was made up of three big dudes who looked like hardcore
motorcyclists, and then a slight front man.
Cervello Elettronico was up next, but were plagued by technical
difficulties. The sound kept cutting off and they weren't able to build
into a groove. I wasn't too impressed, will check out their recorded stuff
to get a better feel for their sound.
Mimetic was next up, a single guy (in a neat red jump suit) on stage. I
felt that the set built up to the okay level, but he wasn't my favourite.
He was easy to spot hanging out in the vendor area during the rest of the
night though!
Architect was up next, and a pair of Boston folks had built them up as the
epitome of IDM music so I was looking forward to finding out just what IDM
was. Turns out that my definition is that it's music that I dance to with
my torso, but it doesn't get my hips/feet into the action. Daniel Meyer
was also DJing in the cafe area downstairs for a set later on in the
evening. I ended up making a dash to the cafe to get a martini (really
confusing the bartenders), and sat at a table and talked to a guy (Sam?)
from SF for a while. Everyone was really nice, it felt like a Convergence
but with industrial music. :)
I was back in time for Iszolscope's set, more dancy noise, which I really
liked. Lots of pointing and throwing the horns from the band members, the
lead was a Jason-from-Liquid-look-a-like, it was a bit disturbing. I
want to pick up a CD at some point, but it's hard to imagine sitting
at home and listening to it, it needs 10 foot speakers and a dark
dance floor to really appreciate.
Imminent was a guy and a laptop. No stage presence, so Cris and I
wandered out of the venue and found a cafe where I could get some tea. The
rain had stopped, it was nice to get a bit of fresh air. The whole venue
tended to get inundated by the fog machine, and the doors to the
bbq/smoking courtyard tended to stay open and let the clouds of tobacco
smoke in. We talked a bit with the cafe guys (older man and his son and
grandson maybe?) explaining about Kinetik and showing them the band
listing that I'd kept in my pocket. I was taking brief notes on my palm
pilot when I could get away with not looking too geeky, I'd been scared
that the huge number of bands would all blur together. They mostly did,
but some stood out even without notes.
We were back in the venue in time for Noisex's set, but by that time we
were worn out. We sat against the wall for a while, and then I got up and
danced when the music built up to a crescendo.
I'd been looking forward to Winterkalte for a while, Tony had been talking
them up for years. They did not disappoint. It was two older guys, looking
very business casual, with the one on keyboards looking like Martin from
Toronto. They were having a tonne of fun, big smiles and teasing back and
forth on stage. I loved the driving noise.
We waited a few minutes while Caustic took the stage, but their banter was
grating on me by that point and we left after their first song or two. As
we were biking along Ontario close to the venue, I saw a guy rolling on
the ground clutching his stomach, a bike spinning it's wheel next to him.
I stopped and when I saw that he could move, told him to get onto the
curb, and I got his bike out of the road. A group of three people also
leaving Kinetik stopped (part of the Winnipeg contingent) and tried to talk to him
in French. I'm still not 100% sure that it was his native language, he
might have been from Europe for the festival (from his t-shirt), but he
was definitely impaired. I hope it was just that he was very very drunk
and not concussed, he fell over repeatedly, including when he tried to get
back on his bike. Cris and I talked a bit with one guy about Minnesota. I
was shivering badly in the cold and damp and had to leave, but the trio
was taking care of him. I looked for them again the next night to see if I
could find out what had happened, but didn't spot them. I was shivering
badly all the way back to the apartment, and took a hot shower once I got
there and immediately burrowed under the covers.
We biked home via Rachel again so that Cris could get a replacement tube in case of another flat, and I poked my head into the Le Chateau up there to see if they had anything I liked. I ended up trying on an almost perfect dress, but the frill at the hem turned me off. I did pick up a pair of wide net tights as I'd been wearing my skirts with bare legs all weekend having forgotten to pack tights. We made it back, and while Cris relaxed, I went out to get my drug store shopping done. I walked over to the Shoppers on St. Laurent and rampaged through the allergy meds section. I also picked up another box of my favourite hair dye, the blackest cherry noir fatale. I was also on a quest to find a warming face mask, and found an end cap full of Life brand packets. I picked up three or four of the masks, and a bonus foot scrub to treat my poor abused feet. I took a sadly quick bath, using one of the face mask packets and the foot scrub (the peppermint in the latter was really refreshing), and got dressed for the club. I wore my long Illig skirt with the reflective piping but it didn't pick up the black light, I was a bit disappointed. The rain held off, though, so I was able to bike in the skirt, just had to keep hitching it up when I got on again after a stop.
We got to the venue just as Astyplaz was doing their last song. First female vocals I'd heard all weekend, but she was a bit breathy and not quite what I was looking for right then. We'd been given a summary and had decided to miss them, so that was the right decision.
Then Necessary Response took the stage and though the front man
immediately looked familiar from Aesthetic Perfection, he kept reminding
us that he was happy to see us again. :) He seemed a bit worn down, his
voice going from partying all weekend, and his extra pep took a while to
kick in. It was generic EBM music, nothing to object to.
FGFC820 was military inspired dancy industrial music, with FLA type
over-processed vocals. But the front man (from Queens, NYC, and a foul
mouthed mofo, and misogynistic) was pretty charismatic, and had actual
audience patter rather than just telling us to dance or raise our arms. I
liked when he said that "my political opinion doesn't matter, we just want
you to have an opinion of your own". He brought the audience down a little
by dedicating a song to a recently (like yesterday) killed soldier.
Pride and Fall were up next, and Ben found me to declare that Chris would
really like them, they were definitely reminiscent of VNV. They were all
power ballads all the time though, and seemed to think that all 1000+ of
us already knew their lyrics and aimed the mic at the crowd to sing far
too often, so I couldn't get a handle on what they were singing about.
I've seen Assemblage23 before, in Boston, right after he decided that he
wasn't going to use voice processing, and he's still trying to sing
unprocessed. Mistake. *sigh*
And... Das Ich, my most anticipated band of the weekend. And they did not
disappoint at all. :) They looked like imps from hell on stage, but they
were all very thankful for being there, for the crowd's reaction, for
everything. :) They got the best crowd response, without having to play
Das Ich Says, it was a huge love fest. :) I pounded my feet to a pulp
dancing.
Icon of Coil was good enough to get me dancing again, through the pain of
abused feet, knees, legs, and back.
XP8 - we stayed for a couple of songs, the lead singer was pretty shouty,
but had nice abs. :)
The ride home was thankfully uneventful this night.
We put the bikes on the car and drove up to the big Mountain Equipment
Co-Op store, where Cris found some biking long shorts/capris/knickers.
Then it was time to hit the road home, the GPS taking us the long way
around the city. We stopped briefly at the duty free, and I got a bottle
of gin. We ate at Three Tomatoes Trattoria in Lebanon, it was good,
leftovers in the trunk for work the next day. The rain held off, Cris
slept while I drove, then I slept while he drove, with him doing 4 hours
this time, 2 to start and finish. We made it home around 10:30pm, unpacked
the car and fell into bed. I dragged my way through the week until I'd
caught up on sleep, and it helepd to see a chiropractor who realigned my
back and convinced me to ice it and take ibuoprofen to speed up the
healing of the strain. Overall, an awesome trip, though. :)