I don’t remember the last time I went out dancing. A little because I think I’m too old for that, a lot because I love being in bed before 10 p.m. However, I cannot resist the call of Information. So I’m waiting for my friends in front of the Café Campus (!) to try out an early night party…
In November 2021, as the bars were preparing to reopen, I wrote a column about dancing. I wondered if nightclubs were also made for us, those who are no longer 20 years old. Many of you wrote to me to express your thirst for dancing, but the lack of spaces where you felt comfortable doing so. I didn’t really know what to answer you… When I heard about two Montreal evenings held from 6 p.m. for people of all ages, I jumped at the opportunity. I could finally give you some advice!
Read the article “Going out dancing when you’re no longer 20”
Who is it for ? How is it ? Great field journalism, what…
First stop: Café Campus, for the La boom evening (“music of party » from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m.). While waiting for my friends, I probe the doorman. The friendly guy explains to me that these monthly events are popular with forty-year-olds who love “ hits for the
My friends arrive and, with them, a little of my confidence. We head up to the bar to find a surprisingly busy dance floor, considering it’s 8 p.m. I estimate that around forty people are waddling there. Which leaves a lot of room for fans of wide movements, but remains enough to let go without too much discomfort.
Moreover, one observation quickly becomes apparent: people are here because they like to dance. I would bet a small 10 that at least 30% of the room takes dance classes. The liberated steps are there.
My friend Amélie shouts in my ear that she appreciates the absence of a dress code. There are two women in hunting shirts, a trio in ball gowns and a man in jeans dancing alone with obvious pleasure. “People just want to feel good,” says Amélie, as caring as she is observant.
Well, our friend François-Olivier certainly does: “It smells like Laser Quest, I like that. » This is undoubtedly thanks to the smoke machine which runs at full speed, generating an astonishing atmosphere.
At 8:30 p.m. euphoric cries burst forth: a shower of bubbles fell from the ceiling. I waddle, laughing to the sound of Sexy Bitch, by David Guetta. My friend Louis-Philippe orders me to write it in my column, appreciating my feminist defeat.
In all honesty, we’re having fun. Louis-Philippe recognizes the songs that played at his cousin’s wedding in Beauce… And who doesn’t like dancing at weddings? Her lover Émilie is immersed in the dance evenings of her 12th birthday, held at the local community center. She savors this “beautiful nostalgia”.
The hits range from the 1980s to the early 2000s. I reluctantly dance to Sean Paul and Shakira before taking a bathroom break. I come across a twenty-year-old there saying to her friends, horrified: “I saw a 50-year-old woman! »
She and her prime are in the minority this evening at Café Campus (a place I visited for the last time when I was 19). I understand that this is destabilizing.
We leave the place after 90 minutes of dancing and a second shower of bubbles to go see what’s happening at the La Rockette bar, which offers a 40 and over evening, from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m., every last Friday of month (and occasionally twice a month; you have to follow their social networks to find out everything).
Here, The Cure, Bruce Springsteen and Toni Basil meet our tastes perfectly.
I am captivated by a silver-haired woman who inhabits the track like no other. The only person who steals the show is the guy dancing on inline skates. Impressive.
The crowd is even more diverse than at Café Campus. There are equal parts of people aged 20 to 60, according to my observations. But it must be said that we arrive at the time when the usual dance evenings (attracting a younger audience) begin. I believe I am witness to the meeting of the two fauns. One thing is certain, it’s a harmonious meeting. I feel no judgment, only pleasure.
I find my friends beautiful. They make me happy. I realize it’s ridiculous that I waited so long to dance with them. Or just to spend a few hours together, in an unorganized way, in the heat of the action and “are you game » ?
We will love our evening so much that we will do it again, two weeks later. We will meet at La Rockette while it is still light outside. These early nights reminded me of the possibility of being together. To live a bit like in the series Friends. I had forgotten that it could be somewhere in 2020, I think. Five years after the pandemic, I thank Montreal’s not-so-nightlife for this little resurrection.
In short: dancing early, at no age? One hundred percent recommended.