Marillion Weekend 2011, April 8-10th, Montreal, Quebec - Part 3

Part 3 – Sunday, April 10th

I woke up way too early the next morning to the sound of what I believed to be pounding feet on most likely stairs. Strangely, I couldn’t find a stairwell anywhere but that’s certainly what it sounded like. It sounded like a few kids running up and down on the stairs, making sure to firmly pound their feet on each step as they went. It was a fantastic way to awake (sarcasm, of course).

As usual, once I’m awake, I’m, well, pretty much awake. I tried to resist getting up but it wasn’t happening. And so, I got up, showered, dressed, and headed out for breakfast relatively close to an actual breakfast time which is a rarity for me.

Out in the street, I once again headed off to the nearest metro station. Every time I ventured to the metro it seemed to get further and further away. I passed, as usual, countless people outside smoking, some which looked like they were about to keel over at any moment. One thing I can definitely say about Montreal…they need a serious ‘stop smoking’ campaign.

I had decided to try breakfast at a restaurant called Burgers and Benedicts, a place that I had passed the previous day on my way out from the AMC Theater. I couldn’t resist since I’m a bit of a benedict fanatic. Like everything thus far, it was a bit of a haul to get there but, seriously, what can you do, right?

Upon arriving, the place was fairly deserted which was certainly fine by me. My breakfast ended up being quite nice. I ordered the weekend special which was a benedict of 2 eggs over avocado on, of all things, French toast. It had a mixture of flavors that really didn’t go together at all…and yet somehow they came back around to create a pleasing flavor. Their coffee ended up being about the strongest coffee I’ve ever had in my life, so much so that I stopped after two cups. I like strong coffee but this was a bit extraordinary.

After paying for breakfast, I decided to take the metro quite a ways in the opposite direction in order to see Parc Olympique. This location has a few “famous” landmarks including the Botanical Gardens, the Biodome, etc. After exiting the metro, I was a bit confused since it basically dumped us in a completely deserted chamber. A few other people got off the metro as well and so I simply decided to follow them. It was quite bizarre. We were walking through this area that had nothing but old run down looking concrete in all directions. We finally reached a door and then began a trek outside, still encapsulated more or less with concrete all around us. At times, it looked like we were walking through a service area, or perhaps a backstage sort of area where you’d usually see roadies loading and unloading gear…except there was no one in sight. I had serious doubts if we were walking in the right direction.


Parc Olympique (notice the cable car ride)

We finally made a turn and, sure enough, there’s the Biodome, shoved in the middle of this concrete. It seemed a bit ironic, really. There were finally other people around as well including quite a few screaming kids running in all directions. I briefly looked through the windows of the Biodome and decided to pass on going in. Instead, I figured I’d do something free, like walking through the botanical gardens.

Getting to the gardens was just as weird. There were a few concrete barriers setup that I had to walk through. Again, it looked like an area where only people with a “pass” would be allowed. There was even a guard sitting in a little booth. He looked at me as I passed by but didn’t ask any questions nor did he attempt to stop me. I could only guess that I was headed in the right direction.

...Part of the Japanese Pavillion at the Botanical Gardens

It was a rather steep hill but I eventually arrived outside a gate to what I believed to be the Botanical Gardens. The gate, however, was open. Hmm. I waited a bit for someone else to walk through first. I eventually deduced that it was okay although I was under the impression that there was a nominal fee for touring the gardens.

Walking around the grounds was nice but nothing was really growing yet since it was still rather cold outside. There were also patches of snow still on the ground, the last remnants of a fairly harsh winter. I was particularly fascinated by the Japanese garden/pavilion area and ended up taking quite a few pictures there.

I stayed perhaps a little over a half hour and then made my way back down the long bizarre concrete path to the metro station. At this point, I was getting pretty exhausted again from all of the walking. I boarded the metro and rode it back to the usual Berri-UQAM station. I exited the metro, flashed my metro pass through the turnstyle, and to my complete amazement…I was standing in front of a small Dunkin Donuts shop. Um..where did this come from?! Now, a bit of history here… I’ve had this thing for Dunkin Donuts for quite some time and since there are none in Minnesota, it’s sort of become a bit blown out of proportion. Still, last time I was in Montreal, I specifically searched for a DD and there were none. On top of that, I’d been in this metro station countless times on this trip and had never seen it. It was like it had materialized out of nowhere! I was completely dumbfounded! Unfortunately, I wasn’t even the least bit hungry.

I went back to my hotel and simply veg’d for awhile. It wasn’t long before the clock was approaching 2pm and so I ventured out once again, this time for the Marillion “day session”. This was the first time that Marillion decided to do some sort of free day session consisting of things like Q&A with the band, “swap the band”, etc. It sounded interesting enough and so I couldn’t resist.

I was really quite impressed with how many people showed up. In my rough estimate, I’d have to say that 50% of the “normal” audience was there. The day session was really quite extraordinary and gave me a glimpse of the band in a way that I had not seen before. There were also a few contests held for some of the banner artwork that displayed in the theater and the winners were allowed to come on stage, briefly meet the band, and then have their pictures taken with the band with the audience cheering behind them. Unfortunately, there were a bunch of guys, presumably from France, holding up a “The Web France” banner (“The Web” is an old Marillion song that became the name of the various Marillion fan clubs around the world) that pretty much blocked out everyone behind them from the shots, of which I was one of them.

There were also two people whose birthdays happened to be on that very day and so the band invited them to come up and get their pictures taken as well. Pretty cool stuff!

The real “coolness”, though, was the “swap the band” session. I believe this contest was held online earlier in the year, where Marillion fans were invited to send in some sort of demo of them posing as any one of the band members of Marillion by playing/singing any song they wish. The winners were then invited to the convention and asked to perform their chosen song live on stage! I mean, how incredibly cool is that? There was a young guy who played guitar on the song “Kayleigh” while, bizarrely enough, a young girl named Kayleigh sang it. Later on, yet another girl named Kayleigh sang the track “Afraid of Sunlight”. She was incredibly in to it and clearly really loving the audience’s reaction, so much so that she got a bit American Idol on us.

One of the best parts was listening to the various band members trying to read the handwritten names of people on index cards. Pete, the bassist, tried to read one extremely French name: “Um…it’s..um…Serge somebody…?” He couldn’t help but laugh at himself. “I’m sorry…um…Serge…wherever you are!”

During the Q&A portion, someone had asked the question, “Why Montreal?” H handled this question. “I’m assuming you’re meaning why have the North American convention here versus the USA…” He went on to explain how Montreal has always had a special vibe for the band which he’s stated before. He also added, though, how the US has made it both time consuming and expensive when trying to get a visa, and how it’s hard to justify. He ended by saying, “So, for the Americans in the audience…you may want to tell your elected officials to lighten up the restrictions since it’s turning many people away from touring there.” It was slightly harsh but, alas, very true. I’ve seen firsthand how the number of non-US resident tours has gone done greatly since 2001 and it’s been quite unfortunate.

The good news, though, was that H added that a US tour was indeed already in the works for the next album and, in his words, “…would be happening within the next 14 months.” So, all you US Marillion fans out there, start preparing now since this could be your last chance!

Marillion during the 'Swap the Band' session

The day session in general really was quite amazing. I know I keep saying this over and over but there’s simply no other band out there like this one. You really can’t help but love them. They are true role models for what other artists should be when it comes to their fans.

Here are the songs that were played during the “swap the band” portion:

Kayleigh (sung by Kayleigh #1)
The Party
Cover My Eyes
Afraid of Sunlight (sung by Kayleigh #2)

After the session was over, on the way out of the venue, I passed a guy in the street who was gently singing “Afraid of Sunlight” to himself with a rather thick French accent. It both warmed my heart and made me slightly giggle at the same time. Music really does bring people together.

I trekked back again to the hotel. I flipped on the TV, hoping to find something to watch for a little while. The best I could find was “Jaws” in French. I don’t know but something was just lost in the translation, I think.

I started preparing mentally for dinner, meaning where I was going to eat, etc. After a bit of thinking, I decided upon Aux Vivres (http://www.auxvivres.com/en/home/), a seemingly well known place billed as the “original” vegan restaurant of Montreal which, of course, was quite a ways from my hotel. Walking a ton more was the last thing I wanted to do but there really wasn’t much of an alternative. And so, I set off again to the metro station.

After a short ride, I exited the metro and started my walk through a nice hip looking neighborhood in search of the restaurant. I barely got a few blocks into it and it started to lightly rain. By the time I reached the café, it was just starting to rain pretty hard, enough to soak my hat very thoroughly.

Inside, Aux Vivres was pretty close to fully packed. I couldn’t believe how busy the restaurant was. The place was clearly popular! I looked over the menu and while it wasn’t exactly a glamorous selection of food, it was definitely a large one with tons of variety. There were tons of sandwich-like options to choose from and it made it a bit difficult to actually come to a decision.

The food was excellent! I ended up having a Mekong sandwich on chapatti that was simply a burst of flavor to my taste buds. I also had a Bombay Banana smoothie and some sort of soup that I can’t remember. Overall, it was absolutely the best food I had eaten in Montreal. It was obvious why the place was so packed. I was also extremely impressed by the wide variety of people who were eating there. Usually, you think of vegans as a particular type of hipster but there were entire families with little kids, older adults, etc., all seemingly enjoying the food.

Upon paying my bill, I had a hard time getting out the door since the place was even more crowded now than previously with many people waiting for a table. I made my way out the door and back in to the rain which had now thankfully lightened up. Upon walking back to the metro station, I debated…do I really dare? I thought about it and then figured what the heck.

I started making my way out to a small dessert café called, ironically, Calories, which I had visited on my previous trip. Calories is way on the other end of town, again, kind of back by where I had breakfast. The worst thing about this café is that you do have to walk outside a bit to get there and it’s kind of a drag in the rain.

I can’t say for sure but it looked like the café had changed owners. None of the cheesecake selections really appealed to me but, well, I was there and figured I needed to get something. I settled upon a slice of the turtle cheesecake and a coffee. Thankfully, the coffee was much lighter than what I had at the beginning of the day at Burgers and Benedicts. The cheesecake, though, was of the soft kind, almost with a texture not unlike firm whipped cream, and all I could really taste was a ton of sugar and no real actual flavor. Needless to say, it wasn’t my favorite. I prefer traditional plain hard cheesecake which they seem to advertise in their picture and yet haven’t had either time I’ve been there. I think next time I think I’ll try elsewhere and hopefully closer!

I once again returned to my hotel completely and totally exhausted. I got back a bit later than was I expecting and it left me only one hour until the evening’s performance. I couldn’t help but wonder how I would ever make it through. The previous night had so much energy that I didn’t think I could ever get to that point again!

3rd Show

Well, it became a non-issue of sorts. It was during this third and last performance that my luck finally completely ran out. It ended up being a pretty lame evening for me, much, much worse than the first show, and pretty much the entire show was ruined by audience members around me. The idiot quotient in the venue seemed to be at an all time high that evening.

I’m sure Marillion themselves were fantastic as always, of course, but I wouldn’t know since no matter who I stood near, they apparently seemed more in to holding a loud conversation rather than watching or listening to the band. It was quite maddening. I moved multiple times throughout the audience but there wasn’t much room to be had so I ended up drifting back and forth between four different spots. Three were filled with constant talkers and laughers; one had a guy I dubbed as Sasquatch, someone so tall that I couldn’t see a blasted thing around his head and hair. Worse yet, there was a younger kid with an upright brimmed baseball hat right behind him who was also fairly tall and insisted on waving his head from side to side so that his head acted like a pendulum to the bigger/hairier Sasquatch, completely blocking my few every few seconds, first left, then right, and so on. Some show!

Something very unfortunate happened pretty early on in the show. During the “Mad” portion of “Goodbye to All That”, H was holding a small crystal ball in his hands on stage. He suddenly decided to chuck it into the audience, which immediately seemed like a big mistake in my eyes, and of course the audience members started hitting it around as if it was a beachball. Well, I’m sure you can imagine what happened next. Now, mind you, this was a small mirrorball, probably with a hollow or styrofoam center so that it was fairly light, but it still had the mirrors on the outside so at least the outer core was fairly solid and potentially sharp. I kept my eye on the thing, fearing an accident was about to happen and I can sometimes be a magnet for such a thing. Sure enough, someone punched the tiny mirrorball way up into the air and it fell and hit some poor unsuspecting guy on the other side of the venue a couple feet in front of me. It hit him with a terrible smack on the side of the head and he bent over, in obvious pain, holding his right ear for a very long time. People started asking him if he was okay and he simply kept holding his ear. I couldn’t hear him but I think he asked the guy next to him if there was any blood, which there didn’t appear to be. I think, with the way the ball hit him, that it might have either affected his hearing for awhile or perhaps it could have fractured the cartilage in his ear. I’m not sure but I felt very sorry for the guy who didn’t even see the thing coming at him. It was a really poor choice of H to toss the ball into the audience. Hopefully, lesson learned.

Marillion played again for about 3 hours. They played a great set too, filled with some songs that I had always wanted to hear live. It was too bad that the sound of talking overpowered the songs. Ugh.

The theme of the evening was “the Glo must Go On”. This ended up meaning that we were all handed Glo Sticks on our way in, and the idea was that the audience was to vote between two different songs for which they preferred to hear. The band would then take a quick count of people holding up sticks and then play the appropriate song. It was quite a cool idea. Eventually, when the band posed a really hard choice between two songs that everyone wanted to hear, a chant began of “Both! Both! Both!!!” The whole place more or less rang out in protest, wanting to hear both tracks. In the end, they caved in on at least one of them.

Yet another cool photo of Marillion hard at work...

There were a couple of flubs in the show. During “Estonia”, a true fan favorite, Steve Rothery’s guitar refused to work and the majority of the song went without him while he frantically tried to communicate with his guitar tech.

Also, before “Easter”, H told the story of how they first played the song as a band. H had apparently just joined the band and had the main body of the song more or less already written out. He had pointed out how the middle of the track needed something in it and thought Steve Rothery could maybe play something during that part. Supposedly, the very first time they ran through the track as a band, Rothery played the solo that was eventually recorded almost verbatim. In the words of H with the usual English accent, “…so yeah, Rothery literally blew it out of his ass…” Rothery’s eyes widened as he glanced over at H, clearly mouthing a “What?!!” and smiling just the same.

Here’s the set list to the best of my memory. I’m sure there are errors here, considering the circumstances, so, as usual, don’t take it verbatim:

Goodbye to All That
Hard as Love (more or less the Less is More version)
Afraid of Sunlight
One Fine Day
Beyond You
Go!
Brave
Estonia
Between You and Me
Ocean Cloud
Happiness is the Road

Neverland

The Great Escape
Easter

This Strange Engine

The band actually closed with “Easter” and I thought they were most certainly done for the night. Everyone was heading out of the theater when they decided to come back and start into “This Strange Engine”. I decided to simply stand way in the back by the soundboard and listen/watch uninterrupted. It was lame being that far back but it had been even more lame being up close. Sigh.

With that, I returned to my hotel room and did my best not to brood about it too much. You win some, you lose some, and this was clearly a loss.