This summer, The duty explores the heritage of different places that have triggered the blossoming of talent here, and sometimes elsewhere, and given wings to a host of artists. Performance halls, studios and workshops. Stories of places that have allowed the creation and dissemination of exceptional works, and that still do. Second stop: Verdun Auditorium.
Eyes that shine, a small smile that appears at the corner of the mouth, a nostalgic sigh. And anecdotes to the shovel that emerge. This is how those who were teenagers between 1980 and 2005 often react to the mention of the Verdun Auditorium. A not-so-welcoming venue, but one that received the cream of the alternative scene at a pivotal time in Montreal’s music industry.
Verdun Auditorium is back in the news these days, after the surprise announcement of a show by Foo Fighters in this room on Monday, July 10, and this, 20 years almost to the day after the band by Dave Grohl played there. The musician had already walked the Verdun scene ten years earlier with Nirvana, nothing less.
A dive into the archives reveals an impressive list of groups and singers, often from the great rock magma, who have delivered a singing tour there. Iron Maiden, Billy Idol, Mötley Crüe, The Cure, Depeche Mode, Metallica, Slayer — at least four times —, Ozzy Osbourne, Pantera, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Voivod, Beastie Boys and Green Day have played there, and more .
“It’s a super-important venue in my career,” says Nick Farkas, currently vice-president of event programming at Evenko, but who has produced numerous shows in Montreal’s alternative scene so far. era, especially with the Greenland box. As a teenager, Farkas, who founded the Osheaga festival, saw The Clash at the Verdun Auditorium. It was 1982. “It changed my life, honestly. I was upset. The music I listened to at that time was not playing on the radio. And when the artists we wanted to see came to town, it was usually in the 18 and over venues, where we couldn’t get in. So, this time, see this showthere with legends, it was huge. »
This is one of the reasons that made the Auditorium de Verdun a precious place for local music lovers: it was a place accessible to everyone, and therefore to teenagers — for whom this kind of experience is fundamental. Nick Farkas confirms it: very few rooms were open to minors.
Moreover, the host Geneviève Borne, who has seen her fair share of concerts in her long career, remembers well her first event in Verdun, in the summer of 1984, during the passage of Mötley Crüe. She was 15 and she had gone there with a friend. “I even got a picture with Tommy Lee that time. Look, dig me how it’s done! »
Anne-Marie Withenshaw, who has been a cultural reporter for Musique Plus and Flash, at TQS, also walked the floor of the Verdun Auditorium for the first time at the age of 15 – it was a Lenny Kravitz concert – before returning there abundantly for work. His memory could explain Geneviève Borne’s photographic anecdote: “It was a place where, after the show, when the lights were on, you could still hang around, they didn’t kick you out. It happened that the musicians came out, because the backstage was next to the floor. It was a very familiar place. »
Intermediate room
The success of the Verdun Auditorium at that time can be explained in the eyes of Nick Farkas by its capacity, oscillating between 4000 and 5000 people. Alternative groups often passed through Les Foufounes Electriques at the start of their careers, but when success began to lift them, the Verdun scene was the perfect choice at the time.
“It’s because there were no other rooms that did that,” recalls Farkas. At the old Forum, if you organized concerts for 5000 people, it was empty. And as a promoter, you could lose your shirt. The arrival of the Bell Centre, a modular hall, was a game-changer, he adds, but the modest arena was at the center of “an important period in the transition to the entertainment world in Montreal”.
Still, the very raw aura of the Verdun Auditorium was in harmony with a whole generation of spectators of this alternative scene. “I know people for whom it was Verdun or nothing, says Nick Farkas laughing. They didn’t want to see a show of arena, it was too much corporate. For them, Verdun was punk-rock, it was different. »
It changed my life, honestly. I was upset.
Because beyond the myth, the place was not very welcoming. ” It was rough, remembers Geneviève Borne. If we compare, the Spectrum was a cozy cocoon. [L’Auditorium de Verdun] was a concrete bunker, then strap on your toque! “With the advantage that the room, managed by the administration of Verdun, remained affordable and that the price of tickets could remain low, notes Farkas. “They knew they were renting a place that didn’t have a lot of stuff. You had electricity, then it was not bad that. »
A vast floor, small bleachers and, above all… no air conditioning. “Was it hot, says Anne-Marie Withenshaw. It was insane. One of my memories at the Verdun Auditorium is that, during the show, you had to reserve a song that you didn’t like so you could take a breath of fresh air outside. Geneviève Borne even recounts having seen Ozzy Osbourne throwing boilers of water at the crowd in front of him.
Nick Farkas remembers the Nirvana and Pearl Jam concerts he produced in 1993, in November and August respectively. “You opened the doors to get in, then you got hit in the face with a heat you can’t even understand. It was intense. Also, the sound was loud, and not always the best, but you were getting into an experience. In Verdun, he summarizes, “it was cacophonous, but it was unique”.