One thing I notice again and again about Montreal is the innate cool often associated with NY street fashion that a lot of the 20-somethings seem to have here. People-watching could be a legitimate hobby in Montreal. The place is more European in its modes of thought, and clothes are no exception. These kids get pieces from countless hours of rummaging thrift stores and unique gems at vintage places along Mont Royal and Bernard rather than ransack the more upscale boutiques and designer labels of NYC. The finished product? An unlikely but distinct and charming look.

Of course, the biggest thing I've noticed about Montreal is the lack of fat people. Why do I always come back to this? For every one fat person, I see at least three hundred slims or skinnies. A feat, I think, considering most in the know start every day with a toasted and subsequently buttered fairmount sesame ('white') or poppy ('black') bagel and all these frites alors joints that seem immensely popular near the main.

Them riding their bikes everywhere and anytime might have something to do with it.

I haven't been riding a bike here.

(Though on my first night a man tried selling me one for $CA 20...)

But they say walking is good, and I've been walking my feet to pieces up and down St. Laurent from Fairmount & Du Parc (home) which takes about an hour if walking fast, exploring the main and using the metro about.

(A monthly pass for the metro+bus can be had for $65 at the beginning of each month at most cornerstores, or as people here call them, 'depanneurs.')

Last night was Patrick Wolf. The venue as pictured in an earlier entry was Cabaret Juste Pour Rire on St. Laurent & Sherbrooke, which requires taking a bus, or, again, walking for an hour. I did the former on the way there, then walked back to the house after the show to look at the clubs scattered along St. Laurent (Orchid, Coco, Tokyo Bar, House).

If the police had busted in, a lot of people nursing drinks would have spent the night in jail; at 14-18 at most, the Patrick Wolf audience is a lot younger than those at Final Fantasy, and I could certainly understand why. Wolf projects a certain Peter Pan-ness (to be differentiated from just 'innocence' or 'naivete') that a lot of kids at this age identify with, and his songs are easy to listen to, among other things. I mean I, too, had become enamoured of him at a younger age. Cringing on more than one occasion went on due to this one Bishi who opened for Patrick. Ugh. Her horrible horny costume and screeching scares children and little dogs.

Surprisingly for me, since he has mostly used the keyboard of late (ukelele and his laptop in the past), Wolf used a violin on a few occasions (hommage to Owen Pallet?) This night:



(All footage taken by my now domesticated coolpix.)

To me, Wolf and Pallet are the perfect couple: Wolf has stage presence (sprinkled with self-conscious arrogance, which isn't necessarily bad in a musician of this calibre)- Pallet not so much. He prefers the attention to be on other things. While Pallet's instrumentation becomes possessed, it is Wolf's very own body that does this. See below in 'Tristan':



Pallet has technical brilliance and an eye for perfection- Wolf has this eye too, but his ability to use instruments real-time are relatively limited (albeit developed since Lycanthropy). Wolf's genius is in sing-a-song, his ability to compose music that sounds effortlessly complete and at the same time markedly different from anything else he has written- Pallet's genius is in the blood-soaked intricate weaving of tales & concepts, both visual and auditory. Pallet seems older than wolf. And yet Pallet needs Wolf just as Wolf needs Pallet. For all intents and purposes, however, Pallet seems to have superceded his lover.

Again, there are numerous parallels to be made. Pallet had birds fly around at one point; Wolf had stars:



After the crowd roared for an encore long and hard, Mr. Wolf finally came back on stage to do two songs. Then he finished with, of course, the magic position. With his shirt off.



I like this song a lot. Wolf has gotten noticeably brighter since Lycanthropy and I can't help but wonder what Peter Pan will show us next.