French People Love The Darkness!

[ForeverAutumn]

So, we're on vacation last week in beautiful and historical Quebec City. We're hanging out in this outdoor cafe in the Lower City, enjoying dinner and a nice bottle of wine and we hear, from the distance, a crowd of people just going freakin' wild with applause and cheers. We hear little snippets of music, but can't make out what we're hearing.

We finish dinner and start to walk up to the higher ground of the Upper City. As we get higher up the hill, we get into slightly better earshot of the crowd and can see, looking down the hill, what appears to be a big light show reflected off of some of the buildings down below.

Suddenly, the crowd goes crazy!!! Then, as they settle down, finally we are able to get a good listen to the music drifting up to us. Justin Hawkins' voice is unmistakable. It's The Darkness singing I Believe In A Thing Called Love. So, we found where we could get the best listen and stood around listening to what must have been their encore. Judging from where the light show was, I figure that they were at least a kilometre or two away, so the show must have been LOUD. But the crowd sure was having a good time. The Darkness is not my favourite band by any means, but it was actually pretty cool to be there, in this beautiful city, on a clear night, a little woozy from the wine, and hear them live.


P.S. If you ever want to see how to really party...go to Quebec City for St. Jean-Baptist Day. This is like the 4th of July in Quebec. They put on a huge musical festival in the park which started at 8:00pm and ended at 5:00am (seriously, bands were scheduled to play until 5). The music was top notch, but all in French. There had to be at least 50,000 people in the park and another 30,000 outside of the park (our hotel room overlooked the event). Lots of public drinking going on and no-one getting hurt. Everyone just celebrating and having a great time. When we woke up in the morning, there were still hundreds of people sleeping in the park. It was quite the experience!!

[Mike]

Just go my ticket for the local Leeds festival in the UK in August with headliners The Darkness and Morrisey, I'm not a huge Darkness fan but I bet they are good live.

But here's the best bit the weeknd also features The White Stripes, The Vines, My Morning Jacket, The Stills, the Killers, The Libertines, The Walkmen, Super Furry Animals, Ash, Placebo and the list goes on. All bands regularly talked about round here and all in all a pretty strong lineup.

ps I got your reply about our good friend Bryan Ryan Adams and I hope to get them out next week.

Cheers
Mike