Some of you may remember my excursion to Montreal in 2009 for the first Marillion Weekend that was ever held on North American soil. It ended up being quite the event and was really a rather fantastic trip, putting aside my persistent stomach issues and not feeling well. I decided to go again this year and here’s my account of the trip.
This will be, like the articles from two years ago, another three part series in order to account for the entire trip. I know some of you are not Marillion fans and so these articles equally focus on the shows as well as me, the trip, and the goofy things that tend to happen. Having said that, I still highly recommend checking out Marillion at http://www.marillion.com/ for anyone that is not familiar with the band. I believe they’re still offering free sampler CD’s to newbies, if you’re at all interested.
I’ll admit up front that I wasn’t looking forward to this trip as much as last time. Maybe it was too soon, meaning, after all, it had only been two years previously. Maybe it was because the trip kind of snuck up on me unexpectedly, only a few days after the snow melted and the weather finally cleared to make way for spring back home. Either way, I wasn’t exactly jumping for joy this time around and that made me a bit nervous.
I had booked my flight information very early so I hardly could recall what I had planned for. Upon looking at it again, I was less than thrilled with my selections. My departing flight was decent but I was set to do the same thing I did last time which was arrive late afternoon and then inevitably be in a rush to get to the first Marillion show that evening, the first of three. Even worse, my return flight wasn’t until Monday afternoon and I couldn’t figure out my logic there either. Why do I do this? That’s just it…I can’t remember why I booked it this way. That’s old age speaking.
I hadn’t been sleeping well all week and the night before I left was the worst yet. I was terribly tired to the point that my eyes were itchy, red, and hurt mildly. What a way to begin the trip!
My flight out was pretty routine. Small plane, small seats, and filled mostly with people speaking French because, well, we were headed to Montreal, after all. All I wanted to do was to get on the plane and be able to sleep.
As usual, I was on the plane before the person sitting next to me. I always take a window seat and this particular sized plane only has 2 seats per side. My “neighbor” finally arrived and stood in the aisle a few moments. He very abruptly dropped his magazine onto the seat cushion and it lazily flopped onto the ground. I sat and stared at it momentarily. Should I pick it up for this guy? I kind of figured that by the time I made a decision that he would already be going for it but for some reason he wasn’t. A long uncomfortable couple of moments passed as I debated in my head, and then finally I picked it up and placed it nicely on his seat. He looked at me, smiled gently, and offered an extremely quiet, “thank you,” more mouthed than actually spoken.
When he was finally ready to sit down, he bent over, put his butt in the air, and attempted to plop into his seat except that he missed and landed more or less on my arm, then the armrest, and then into his seat, basically dragging his butt down my left arm. Lovely! Yes, this is what I was looking forward to. You’ve got to love air travel, I tell you!
He didn’t say another word to me for the rest of the flight. In fact, I don’t think he looked at me once after that which was sort of okay since all I wanted to do was sleep. Well, that wasn’t going to happen either, at least not much. He fidgeted the entire trip, more or less suddenly getting up slightly, repositioning himself in his seat and bumping the armrest between us, which then woke me up. This occurred over and over, like every 5-10 minutes. I would barely get my eyes closed, fall asleep, and whammo. Fantastic! Getting better all the time!
He also read his magazine, some business journal, religiously through the entire trip, or at least when I had my eyes open. It was amazing. I’ve never seen anyone so glued to something before. Even when the flight attendant would come by and ask a question, he would simply reply by staring at the magazine rather than making eye contact.
Right before we landed, we were asked to fill out our customs forms and, as usual, I didn’t have a pen with me. The guy next to me, though, had one that he had placed into the seat holder after he was done using it. I politely asked him if I could use his pen and he literally took it out of the holder, handed it to me, and didn’t look up from his magazine once. Wow. It was almost impressive. I used his pen, filled out my form, and then handed it back, saying thank you. He nodded at his magazine without a word.
We landed at the airport and got off the plane by walking down the built-in stairwell of the plane, something we don’t do often anymore in the US. It was extremely steep so I understand why we don’t! Then began the enormous trek to the customs booth. If you’ve ever landed in Montreal before, you’ll probably remember being herded like cattle for what seems like blocks before you get to the customs area. Once there, you queue like at Disneyland to get through customs.
The officer I went to apparently was having a bad day. She asked me where I was coming from and I totally blanked. “Um…” I said like a fool, and then it dawned on me, “Oh, um, Minnesota!” Believe it or not, she still let me through, although I grabbed my passport and started walking way. “Um, sir!” she yelled at me. I turned around to see that she was handing me my customs form back. “Oh!” I grabbed the form and she simply glared at me with the face of death. Geesh, tough crowd!
I carried on my baggage so I didn’t need to worry about picking anything up at baggage claim. Per the documentation that I had looked at previously, I needed to catch the 747 Express bus to downtown Montreal and I could buy an STM pass (transit pass) at the Currency desk. I found the Currency desk and asked for an STM pass. Apparently, it was the wrong Currency desk and so I left a bit confused.
Next, there was a huge line at the exit. I couldn’t figure out why at first but it’s because you need to hand your customs form to yet another officer in order to exit. It was a terrible way to queue a bunch of people but that seems to be the norm in Montreal, from at least what I’ve seen. Once I managed to get through the exit, I found yet another Currency desk, all the while hoping that this would be the correct one. I could also see the 747 Express bus waiting outside the airport so I felt a bit more confident.
The Currency desk was completely enshrouded with plastic with no actual holes in it to talk through. The only opening was at the bottom where you could pass money back and forth. I asked the man in the booth if I could buy an STM pass. He responded and I could see his lips move but absolutely no sound was heard. I politely said, “I can’t hear you,” and so he started raising his voice but mostly speaking French and/or with a strong accent. Oh boy, here we go…
And so, we went back and forth, him not understanding me and I not understanding him. I asked for a 1 day and a 3 day pass and asked if they take credit card. He said that they only accepted cash. I asked if he accepted American dollars, which was the only thing I had on me at this point, and he said yes but seemed to be confused about how much it was. He came up with $37, which seems wrong to me in hindsight, and I handed him two $20 bills. He seemed really confused by them and asked, “Is this forty?” This, of course, confused the hell out of me, I mean, he was the currency exchange after all. I said, “Yes, it’s forty.” He reluctantly took it, handed me the passes, and very little change. I felt like I had just been ripped off but who knows. I know the American dollar is down in comparison to the Canadian dollar but what did I know. It really hits home how bad the American economy is when the Canadian dollar is worth a bit more.
I exited the airport and boarded the 747 Express bus. There was a machine at the front of the bus where you evidently had to swipe your STM pass. I was the first person on the bus so I didn’t have the opportunity to watch someone else do it. And so, like an idiot, I was trying to swipe the card at the wrong spot, wondering why it wasn’t working. Here I am, waving my card around over this large piece of plastic, expecting some sort of magic to happen, while the bus driver sat and watched me with a puzzled look on his face. He finally grew tired of seeing me act the fool and so he pointed at the correct place to put the card while saying something loudly in French. I swiped the card and sure enough, a little green light went on with a pleasant “bleep” sound.
I placed my luggage in the rack and took a seat. One by one people piled onto the bus until it was wall to wall people. They sure know how to pack them in, let me tell you. One other person wasn’t sure what to do with their STM card so it evidently wasn’t just me. A little while later, the bus took off over the rough roads towards downtown Montreal.
It was then that I noticed a guy wearing sunglasses who was wearing a Marillion t-shirt. I had been wondering if I’d bump into any other fans along the way. I don’t normally wear any band paraphernalia, except my own, ironically, and so I travel pretty much undercover, if you will. There was a couple sitting almost directly across from me that looked rather confused. They were in their early 50’s and looked extremely hip for their age. They didn’t look French Canadian to me but instead possibly English. The man took out a map of the metro and they both did their best to interpret it. He especially looked at it with a very puzzled look on his face as he turned the map different directions.
A little while later, the man turned to the guy in the Marillion t-shirt and said, “I see your shirt. You’re going to Weekend I suppose, eh?” They in turn started up a conversation which I couldn’t help but eavesdrop on. It took all of a couple seconds to hear the couples’ accent to know they were from the UK. A little while later, the man said, “Well, we’re from England and we just saw the Marillion Weekend in Amsterdam last month. So, we decided to come here and make a vacation of it.” Ah, yes, English, just like I thought. Damn I’m good. The couple turned out to be named Oliver and Lynn and I eventually butted my own way into the conversation. Next thing you know, the topic of Marillion took over the 747 bus. It was kind of cool, at least to those of us in on the conversation.
Just like last time, it seemed to take forever to get to downtown. Along the way, the bus passed by what seemed like endless pits of destruction filled with torn up concrete, buildings perhaps blown to bits, etc. I distinctly remember this from the last trip as well. It seems that Montreal always looks to be in a state of disarray, like some war just ripped through the city but managed to stay out of the news. A bit later, after entering the downtown area, the bus finally arrived at my stop and I exited with my suitcase. I only had a short walk and there was the Days Inn Centreville. Nice and convenient!
I checked in and went up to my room. My room was on the 2nd floor and was located right along the street with large glass windows. At first, this seemed cool; later on, it would end up being a true burden, but more on that later. Whereas the room did look like the brochure in most respects, the hotel in general looked and sounded better in theory than it was. It was obvious that Photoshop helped with the attractiveness of the brochure. It wasn’t bad, mind you, but didn’t exactly turn me on. My hotel from the previous trip was definitely a bit classier. I was also disappointed to see that this hotel didn’t have any sort of store to buy water, coffee, etc.
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| My hotel room |
I actually ended up getting to the hotel earlier than I had expected. It was now around 5:30pm so I had enough time to get something to eat and chill a bit before the show. I went through the restaurant list that I brought with me and decided to go to a place called L’Escalier and see what they were all about since it wasn’t very far from the hotel.
This also gave me an opportunity to check out the area around the hotel. This turned out to be rather disappointing as well. The direct area right around the hotel looked a little shady. It was only the police station one block down that put me a bit at ease. Then again, maybe that was a bad sign. I couldn’t be sure.
The only “real” looking sit down styled restaurant I passed was called Pacini and looked to be Italian food. This was a good find since I now had a fallback plan if L’Escalier didn’t work out.
I had previously wondered how I hadn’t seen L’Escalier last time I was here since I had to walk right past it to get to the theater where Marillion perform. Once I found the restaurant I understood how I missed it; there’s nothing there but a strangely painted door. The actual building is on the second floor and there’s simply a green door leading upwards with no sign, etc. You’d never know it was there if you weren’t looking for it.
I went through the door and walked up the stairs. It had a definite urban hippie sort of vibe and I felt slightly out of place. The menu was written on a chalkboard above a long counter and it was completely in French. I could make out only one word here or there. This was going to be tricky.
I went up to the counter and a girl greeted me in French. I quickly switched the conversation to English but the girl had quite an accent. I asked, “Do you take credit cards?” She said no, that they didn’t have a machine. Ugh. “Do you take American dollars?” I asked hopefully. “I don’t have any Canadian money.” At first she said no, then someone else came up and said yes. Then the two of them spoke back and forth and I got completely lost in the conversation. “So…yes then?” I asked again. It seemed so. I ordered a tofu sandwich, although honestly I had no idea what I was really ordering, and some sort of cranberry drink. The girl promptly pulled out a slim can and popped the top. I handed her a $20 bill and she started to panic.
“Oh, no. I can’t do twenty,” she said. She said this like she had already told me, which maybe she did amongst all the other commotion and I didn’t hear her.
“Well, I don’t have anything smaller,” I said. I was getting frustrated, especially since I didn’t even know what the heck I was ordering. “Is there an ATM here?”
“Oui!” she replied. “Right out the door over there,” she stated pointing.
“Ok, I’ll come back.” She looked a bit frustrated and so was I. “Sorry!” I said and walked back down the stairs. By the time I reached the bottom I thought, screw this, I’m going to Pacini! This isn’t worth the hassle! And this, my friends, is why I didn’t eat out much last time I was in Montreal.
I backtracked towards the hotel again and went in to Pacini. A bit of time had passed and now I was getting closer to being in a bit of a hurry. There was no real time for debating at this point. Inside the restaurant, I first came upon a centrally located square grill of sorts with a bunch of people standing around it. I’ve never seen anything quite like it and couldn’t figure out what exactly they were doing. Ignoring them, I finally found the host/hostess podium and was seated by a hostess. The menu was both in French and English, thankfully.
I spoke to the waitress a bit and I settled upon the lasagna, more or less based upon her recommendation. She said it came with the all you can eat bread bar. The what?! I went and checked it out and that’s what the square grill was all about. Basically, there are a few different varieties of thickly sliced bread to choose from. You pick one out and then choose from a variety of spreads like butter, pesto, garlic, tomato, etc. You spread that on your bread and then place it on the grill with tongs. Standing around the grill, you wait until it chars to your liking. It’s actually pretty ingenious, I thought, and turned out to be the best part of the meal.
The lasagna was less than good. It was kind of cold, had no real flair to it at all, and was a bit worse than one of the frozen varieties I frequently purchase. The meal wasn’t cheap, either. I was a bit bummed. I had a hard time getting the bill too. Meanwhile, the clock was ticking.
I paid for my meal, went back to the hotel briefly, and then it was off to the show. In fact, the doors had opened up an hour previously and at least one of the warm up acts had already been on. I wanted to catch a bit of it but, as it turned out, I had just missed it.
I walked into L’Olympia, got my Marillion Weekend wristband, schedule, etc., and ventured in to the theater. The place was pretty crowded and I more or less went to the same location that I stood for all three shows two years previously. In a bit of irony, without realizing it, I ended up standing directly behind Oliver and Lynn, the English couple from the 747 Express bus. We shook hands, talked a bit, and it wasn’t long before the second warm up act, John Wesley, came out. I’ve seen John Wesley play every single time I’ve seen Marillion and, well, not really by choice. He’s a great guitar player, mind you, and not a bad songwriter either but I could have certainly skipped it. A bit too stuck in the 80’s for my taste but that’s just me.
After John Wesley was done, the audience had shifted quite a bit. I had no idea what happened to Oliver and Lynn and did not see them again for the rest of the weekend. As I waited for the main show to start, I couldn’t help but listen to these two guys behind me talking about Marillion and the crowd, etc. One guy said the word f*** literally twice in every sentence. “I can’t f***in’ believe how many f***in’ people there are here. I mean, it’s f***in’ incredible to see this many f***in’ Marillion fans in one f****in’ place!”
They started talking about the warm up act, meaning John Wesley, and they apparently didn’t know who he was. I assumed they hadn’t picked up a schedule on the way in. “Who is this f***in’ guy? He’s a f***in’ great guitar player.” I didn’t want John Wesley to lose out on a potential fan and so I turned around and filled them in.
“That’s John Wesley. He almost always opens up for Marillion,” I said. “He’s playing a free show at some bar tomorrow during the day, if you want to check it out.” We chatted briefly. Turns out they were from Toronto. No joke, every sentence had some variation of f*** in it. Coupled with the Canadian accent it was pretty unbelievable. They were really pleasant, mind you, and it turned out that the one guy had followed Marillion for years. “Yeah, I saw Marillion back when f***in’ Fish was in the group. Man, in ’85, he f***in’ came out in a f***in’ kilt! I mean, what the f***?! A f***in’ kilt! It was f***in’ incredible! Just like in the f***in’ video! Have you seen the f***in’ video? It was just like that! F***in’ incredible!”
Shortly after, the lights went down and Marillion took the stage. Night #1 was a full performance of the “Holidays in Eden” album, one of their weaker more pop oriented albums, but the tour that I happened to miss by total accident back in 1992. I had always looked for a way to make that up.
The crowd was beyond gracious. After the opening song “Splintering Heart” was completed, the crowd simply cheered and clapped for what seemed like five minutes. The band was clearly touched.
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| Marillion playing a track from "Holidays in Eden" (notice the graphic in the background) |
Something weird happened during one of my favorite tunes “The Party”. All of a sudden the room smelled of smoke and fire. You couldn’t really see smoke but it definitely had a super strong odor of unmistakable fire. Everyone started looking around worriedly, almost waiting for panic to erupt. We were quite packed in to the theater so this was really rather disconcerting. The band continued playing, though, as if they didn’t notice it and nothing ever became of it. Unfortunately, it caused me to more or less miss the entire song. I’m still not sure what the heck happened.
There were lots of technical glitches throughout the night. At one point, after guitarist Steve Rothery switched guitars, the tech forgot to plug it in. Later on, lead singer Steve Hogarth (H) commented, “Please forgive us if we make any mistakes. We’ve got like 9 hours of music in our heads right now for you and some of these songs we haven’t played in years, or really ever, for that matter. So, please overlook any mistakes.” On the very next song, Steve Rothery completely messed up his guitar solo and did his best to flub his way through it, improvising. After the song was over, he smiled embarrassingly at the rest of the band with a “what the hell was that?” sort of look on his face.
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| Steve Rothery taking a guitar solo |
Another interesting moment was when H greeted the audience officially. He started in French but clearly only knew a handful of words. He quickly switched to English and said something along the lines of ‘I don’t what the heck I’m saying anyhow’. Some guy yelled out, “Hee hee hee, ho ho ho,” as in the French slur from a movie like, say, “The Little Mermaid”, where the French chef goes after the fish. It was really quite odd. Obviously, there were lots of Americans in the audience and English Canadians as well but it seemed rather rude to yell such a thing out in Montreal on French Canadian soil.
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| Steve Hogarth (H) center stage with the lights focused on him |
Here’s the set list, all done by memory. I’m sure I’ve got a few of these out of order but I think I have them all listed:
Splintering Heart
Cover My Eyes
The Party
No One Can
Holidays in Eden
Dry Land
Waiting to Happen
This Town
The Rake’s Progress
100 Nights
(break)
A Collection
How Can it Hurt
Beautiful
The Memory of Water (new alt. rock version)
Man of a Thousand Faces
The Invisible Man
The show was good but I was closer than usual and it was extremely hot in the theater. It was so hot that I felt almost faint at times and therefore it kind of put me in a daze through most of it. It was almost like I wasn’t fully there for the show and it seemed to pass by without me. In hindsight, I should have moved back in order to get some air but, alas, I did not.
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| H as the "Invisible Man" |
I returned to my hotel completely exhausted and dry mouthed. I hadn’t been sleeping well so that coupled with sweating to death really knocked me out. It was also now after midnight. I luckily found a vending machine in the hotel and purchased the only juice looking drink in it. I wasn’t sure what it was because the label was in French on the sign. Upon receiving it, it turned out to be 5 Alive, something I haven’t had in years. I drank it way too quickly and plopped down on the bed to watch a bit of TV before turning in. 80% of the channels were in French. To make matters worse, there didn’t appear to be any cable TV nor pay movie channels. This was going to be rough. I was really not pleased with my hotel choice at this point.
I turned the lights out and climbed in to bed. There was a heck of a lot of noise on the street for 12:30am. Keep in mind that I was located on the 2nd floor facing the street. I couldn’t really get the room completely dark so I got up and tried to close the curtains more. I fidgeted with the curtain rod and it disconnected from up above and basically fell on my head. I tried but couldn’t seem to get it back up from whence it came. I had only been there a few hours and I was already wrecking the place.
I got back in to bed and started to relax. Amidst the sounds of cars honking, revving, and occasional police sirens, I suddenly heard a woman screaming. Alarmed, I put my head up to listen and pondered if I should call the front desk, or maybe even the police. Then, the more I listened, I realized that I was hearing someone in a room down the hall and, um, I think she was close to climaxing. I figured I better not call anyone about it.
I started to drift off slowly. It had been a long day and a slightly disappointing one. Maybe coming out for this Marillion Weekend wasn’t such a great idea after all. Maybe I’m over it. Who knows. Zzzzzzz…
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