We felt it last night walking the streets of the Quartier des Spectacles, for the kickoff of the 34are Franks. Montrealers were eager to hear the music ring out, discover artists and applaud their favourites. To fill your head with notes, to change the air, to drive away the clouds of smoke, to see a little light emanating from the scenes. FouKi benefited from this: in front of him, several tens of thousands of cheerful fans — 30,000? 35,000? This crowd almost looked like the great July evenings at the Montreal International Jazz Festival, when tourists abound.
The “Plato Hess” rapper had carried his launch pad right in the middle of the big stage, Place des Festivals, like at Place Bell last April, then at the Videotron Center a few weeks later. To him the honor of ringing the start of the French-speaking festivities, which he did with the bonhomie that we know him, putting on the known and catchy refrains in front of this audience of all ages. Before him on the same big stage (at 7 p.m.), the young Fredz, who won at least as much success in French-speaking Europe as here with his melodic and unpretentious rap, sang his refrains in front of such a relaxed and heterogeneous audience.
In the street, we already felt like summer on this inaugural day of the season of major Montreal festivals. Dive back into the crowds, the opportunity to reclaim the city center by browsing from one stage to another, cutting through the queues in front of the bars and counters of street food. On the way to the Gros Mené rock mass, we cling to the corner of Sainte-Catherine and Jeanne-Mance, in front of the ghost museum: Andy S, our discovery of the day, performed there.
“This is my first concert in Montreal! “, escapes the young rapper of 25 years, originally from Abidjan. Andy S, known as “la Pépita”, the nugget from Côte d’Ivoire, arrives on stage with a knife between his teeth. Everything to prove to this sparse crowd, but made up of hip-hop fans looking for new sounds. His is heavy. In the hybrid trap/drill rhythm as in the text, militant by her posture: she is the best, she snipes with her sharp prosody (“The best rapper in Côte d’Ivoire is a rapper”, is -he writes on his official YouTube account, wearing a picture of 2Pac!). Its energy is impressive, rough and vitaminized. Rhythmic and melodic colors of her country of origin interfere in her playing when the tempo gets carried away on these unreleased songs that she has served to the Quebec public.
At the east end of the site, the small parterre is packed for our heavy rock guys, Gros Mené. The crowd mixes the flavors of poutine sauce and pot as the quintet unpacks its bag, which will contain a good 90 minutes of prog-stoner rock. “How are you guys doing?” “, asks Fred Fortin, officiating on vocals and bass, observing shortly after that the size of the crowd corresponds to that, combined, of all the shows they have given in recent weeks, Gros Mené scraping the road from the alternative stages. of the province. And satisfying the fans: over time, Gros Mené seems to have found the perfect balance between gravity and refinement, his rock revealing with more finesse the complexity of his melodic and rhythmic structures. Like a good wine aging…
Time to hear from a couple of friends waiting their turn in the queue at the bar, we continue our journey from one scene to another. Last stop, the MTelus, for the premiere of the new Lost show serving as the launch of the album The legacy released last April.
There was an atmosphere on the floor of the MTelus when we set foot there, shortly before the arrival on stage of the MC, a member of the 5Sang14 collective. Highlighted by a small orchestra made up of a drummer, a guitarist and a master of machines and sequencers, the songs from the recent album shone at the Francos, while its author only needed a song to put the public in his pocket – it’s as if the fans had memorized in six weeks the rhymes of the rapper to recite them with him.
Without his colleagues from 5Sang14, Lost imposes himself, the rapper’s voice matching his stature: imperial. After four or five songs, he attracts his guests on stage, starting with the singer Tessita for the cadence CARIO, then the friend Shreez, others waiting their turn behind the scenes to also give them the hug. Solid show.