Kinetik Fest Day 2 Round Up

I always feel better and more relaxed waking up after that first night in the hotel. I can really settle into my surroundings when I haven't been on a plane or traveling for 10 hours.  I wake up fresh and ready to really start absorbing what the foreign city has to offer.

Jamie & I always try to get some culture in on our Montreal trips, so this was our day to visit the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts.  As much as we like art, this was no random visit.  On special exhibit was "The Warrior Emperor & China's Terracotta Army."  As long as I can remember, I've wanted to travel to China to see these.  As luck would have it, they have come to me!

The exhibit consisted of about 15 of the terracotta statues in various states of care.  Some looked pristine while others were clearly attacked by subsequent rulers of China trying to erase their predecessors. Being my first museum outside of the States and first in a bi-lingual country several things struck me.  First, the descriptions and stories were in both English and French.  This is not really a ground-breaking revelation, just different from what I'm used to.  Second, (and Jamie noted this too), those same stories and descriptions seemed to be more informative.  

There have been a few special exhibits I've seen that have left me speechless.  The Dead Sea Scrolls and The King Tut Exhibit were just truly amazing.  The Terracotta Warriors are also of the highest quality.  I think this exhibit would have made coming to Montreal worth it if that's all we did.  Along with the treasures of King Tut, the Warriors are a testament to Man's desire for immortality.  As wonderful as the warriors themselves were, it was some of the little things and little details that amazed me also.  The statues were built to protect the Emperor in his afterlife, much like the treasures of the pyramids were left to keep the Pharaoh in his usual comforts in the afterlife.  Aside of the 8000+ strong army left behind, there were many other things entombed for the Emperor's enjoyment.  There were statues of acrobats and other entertainers.  There was also a pit uncovered with 46 life size waterfowl including cranes, swans and geese.  They were all made of bronze and just beautiful.  One swan was included in this display, and was meticulous beyond belief.

After the obligatory purchases at the gift shop, we viewed the rest of the museum.  I was unable to find the Goya exhibit I was looking for, but we wandered around and found some other great exhibits.  The other special exhibit was on Napoleon.  It included his over-the-top silver tableware, several paintings of Napoleon himself, paintings he commissioned, and some of his personal affects.  For me, the highlight was one of Napoleon's hats.  You know, those wonderfully large hats he wore.  Coolest tidbit I learned at the museum: The hats he wore were not special, they were regular French military hats that wore sideways.   Napoleon wanted to be visible from anywhere on the battlefield.  He accomplished this by wearing his hat different from all the other soldiers.  It worked: can you think of Napoleon without seeing him in that hat?

Night 2 of Kinetik wasn't too exciting for us, so we decided to have a mostly non-Kinetik day.  The museum in the morning, then we wandered back in the direction of the hotel checking out overpriced clothing stores.  We took our time getting back home and were exhausted by the time we made it back to the hotel.  We laid down for a nap, but as would be the pattern for the whole trip, I was restless.

I figured I would stop by the venue to see who was around, and then head back to the hotel and catch dinner with Jamie.  I ran into some of our Wisconsin crew and chatted for a while.  Still people watching as we talked, my eyes fixed on someone.  My face probably had some silly look on it and my friends chucked at me.  I asked, "Am I looking at who I think I'm looking at?"  They laughed and said "yup!"  I never thought I would see Johan von Roy of Suicide Commando in person, but lo and behold, the man was there.  Jean-Francois, the man behind the Kinetik Fest, posted online the day before that Johan was walking around the sunny streets of Montreal.  It seemed he was telling the truth!

For years, talk of having Suicide Commando play Kinetik Fest, or indeed anywhere in North America, was laughable.  Due to a dislike of flying (Johan says ear pressure during flying makes it too uncomfortable for him) Suicide Commando had never played anywhere he would need to fly to.  On January 1st, 2011, the Kinetik crew announced that Suicide Commando would be playing and that made hordes of people on this side of the pond very happy.

I blanked out for a moment on whatever my friends were talking about while a few things ran through my head.  How was I going to go over and say hello?  How was I going to stop shaking and not fumble over my words?  How was I going to tell Jamie I met Johan von Roy while she was back at the hotel sleeping?

Myself with Johan von Roy

After the initial shock wore off, I grabbed my friend Amanda, gave her the camera and walked on over.  We waited at a reasonable distance while some other people were chatting and getting photos.  The longer we waited, the more nervous I got.  It’s pretty rare for me to get star struck, so I wasn't used to the feeling.  When he was free, I walked over and shook his hand and thanked him for making the trip to North America.  The whole time we chatted, I felt silly for being nervous about meeting him.  He’s just a guy, one that makes awesome music, but still just a guy.

After the chat and some photos I walked, or floated, away.  I actually was filled with too much excitement to hang around the club.  Not even sure what band was on at that point, I started to walk back to the hotel.  I got back to the hotel to find Jamie still sleeping.  I paced around until she woke up and couldn't even hold it in, I had to tell her right away!  She was happy for me, but not too jealous.  She likes Suicide Commando but she's not a fanatic like I am.

The excitement did get her in the mood to head down to the venue, which we didn't really plans for.  We got there just in time to catch God Module's last song.  We have seen them already at Kinetik 2, and if memory serves me well, also in Madison, Wisconsin, USA.  I would have enjoyed seeing their full set, as they are a band I haven't paid enough attention too.

The evening was mostly a social call, catching up with friends from New York and the DC area.  The circle of friends we have made through the Kinetik Festival have been amazing.  With the wonders of the internet, we get to keep in touch year round.  That makes seeing them in subsequent years all the more special.  Everyone looks forward to Kinetik as a kind of family reunion.  Having met people from all over the globe, this becomes one of the few chances to see them again.  Between seeing our favorite bands of all time, and seeing old friends in this setting, it gets overwhelming sometimes.

Myself, Jamie and Kronik Kondition

We also got some "window shopping" done, as it were, at the many vendors.  There were plenty of CD's, t-shirts, posters, patches and other clothing items that demanded our attention and money.  Jamie and I made a habit of at least scouting our purchases out early in the week before just spending tons of money all at once (it kind of worked).

We hung around to hear a few songs from the Belgian band, The Klinik.  They were one of the older bands playing the fest that I didn't know too much about and I wanted to at least be able to say I've seen them live.  The Klinik is going to be another band that I will have to look into more later on.  Hopefully I won't regret having missed most of their set.  It was only around midnight when we decided to leave.  An early time to call it a night, but it had been a long day and we still had 3 more days to go.

Kinetik Fest Day 1 Round Up

Months of anticipation had built up to a 6AM trip to the Milwaukee airport.  At least the car ride was uneventful - unless you count almost getting run off the road.  Then the usual air travel issues: poor signage at the airport, grumpy ticket window employees, and of course the power tripping TSA workers.

The love of my life and travel companion, Jamie, seemed to think the combination of my mo-hawk and accidentally leaving my belt on for the metal detector attracted enough attention for TSA to demand that I use the full body scanner.  After declining that, and getting a stern talking too for doing so, I got my TSA-approved free groping from a fine member of their team... while Jamie watched.  Kinky in some circles, but I just wanted to get to Montreal!  More humor on the flight: we were in the very back row, 13, which was unlabeled.  I do have to give thanks to the Airline itself, Air Canada.  These were the best sets of flights I've ever had.  Upon hearing that Jamie wasn't the best of fliers, the staff became very attentive.  The stewardess checked on us several times, and even the pilot himself came to the back of the plane for a chat and to make sure she was comfortable.

We had a 2 hour layover in Toronto, went through customs, which was a breeze, then boarded our next flight.  Thankfully, this was a larger plane, with TV/entertainment sets in the headrests in front of you, because of course the plane had a broken fire detector "somewhere" that needed to be fixed.   It took over two and a half hours to find and fix.  The only thought on our mind, we better not miss Funker Vogt.

Ah yes, Funker Vogt!  One of the main attractions of Day 1 of Kinetik Fest 4.0.  Kinetik Festival in Montreal, Canada is the largest gathering of Industrial/Electro/Noise acts in North America.  Industrial music fans make the pilgrimage from all over the world to attend.  Funker Vogt themselves came from Germany to play.  The other highlights that night were Die Krupps (also from Germany) and Canada's own Front Line Assembly.

After the crew fixed the smoke detector (which it turns out was in the damn cargo hold), the rest of the flight was uneventful.  Landing at Montreal's Trudeau Airport, we felt at ease almost immediately.  Being our third trip to Montreal, and second by plane, the airport itself was the gateway to a week of being in our own special world.  A world where if we mentioned our favorite bands name, we didn't get blank stares in return.  No need to tell anyone to google "Covenant" or "VNV Nation".

The cab ride was harrowing as usual, but got us to our hotel in good shape.  The La Tour Centre-Ville looked pretty bland from the outside, but our room was a small apartment!  Full kitchen, living room, bedroom and decent size bathroom.  It worked out well in the long run: I developed a case of excitement-induced insomnia and while Jamie slept in the bedroom I was able to dally around in the living room and ended up watching Lost in French.  While checking in, we met what we guessed would be a Kinetik pilgrim from the furthest away we would meet.  Russell was a great guy, and came all the way from New Zealand!  

After we settled in the room and made a quick clothes change we headed over to the venue.  A short 10 minute walk away, the Metropolis was a beautiful building that opened in 1884 and has been everything from a skating rink, to adult theater to concert venue.  The line for our passes from the box office sucked, but it was a chance to settle in to the eye candy.  The shiny outfits, super old vintage Front Line Assembly shirts, the over the top hairfalls..  So nice to see en masse again.  I always thought seeing just one or two cyber goths at the local club looked out of place, but seeing hundreds of them... works much better.  Its actually starting to give me more appreciation of the one or two we do see at the club.

We got inside to catch the very end of Ivardensphere (from Canada).  Three guys on stage, wearing black (rubber?) aprons.  The kind a serial killer would wear while dismembering some corpses and listening to great beats.  Nice way to start!  Paying half our attention to the band, we were mostly getting settled in to our home for the next 5 days.  The building was beautiful inside, as were the people.  Within minutes, we saw a number of familiar faces.  It’s a wonderful feeling to fly to another city, in another country, and have a family waiting for you.

After Ivardensphere, we made our way to get as close to the stage as we could.; with some amazing luck, we made it right up front and just left of center.  Funker Vogt was up next!  A club favorite, and in my regular music rotation for over 10 years, I was beyond excited to see them.  Just seeing their laptop with the gunner logo got me jumping up and down.  I’m always terrible at remembering set lists, but the song that sticks out was Tragic Hero.  We were enthralled for the entire set.  I had seen then back in 2002 in NYC.  The lineup had changed, but they still blew my mind live.

We headed back to the hotel to regroup; basically jumping into the Fest with one of the biggest bands we were waiting for right away was a bit overwhelming.  I do regret missing the next band in hindsight.  I didn't know much of Die Krupps, but I've heard wonderful things about their set after the fact.  On the way back to the hotel, we stopped at a pizza place 1 block over from the venue.  Jamie had pizza, but I was reveling in my first Poutine of the trip.

Poutine is a Quebec staple.  French fries, fresh cheese curds, brown gravy and a splash of vinegar.  Simply amazing comfort food.  Under any circumstances, it really hits the spot.  They make it more complicated, with other ingredients, but I enjoyed the basic version.

After a quick rest, we made it back to the venue for Front Line Assembly.  Not being a huge fan, Jamie went up to the balcony to watch, while I tried to make my way to the front.  The place was packed, so there was no making it to the front.  I had found a nice place in the middle of the room, could see the stage well, and had some room to dance.

Front Line Assembly has a special place in my heart.  Back in high school, a good friend of mine by the name of Sean handed me a CD.  The title was Live Wired, and the band was Front Line Assembly.  The CD didn't leave my player for weeks.  The song Plasticity sold me.  Sean eventually gave me the single for Plasticity when it came out.  Live Wired and FLA got me into this wonderful genre.  I saw FLA live in concert with Sean once, I believe it was 2001, again in NYC.  Sean passed away a few years later, and to this day, FLA brings his spirit back to me.

FLA has power live.  The room became electric.  Again, I can’t remember the entire set list, but Circuitry, Resist and Plasticity were mind blowing to hear for me.  Pounding live drums for Resist gave the song a soul!  Plasticity of course was the song I was there to hear.  Sounds phenomenal live, and it was a musical memorial to my friend Sean.  After Plasticity I felt exhausted, went to find Jamie and sat with her to watch the set from the balcony.

It had been a long day, and while still riding the euphoria, we made our way out slowly.  Jamie was exhausted, and I was just overwhelmed.  I grabbed one of the last 2 special editions of "Diaspora" by Tyske Ludder on the way out.  We wandered back to the hotel, sore and tired, but ready for more.

Day 2 in my next post.

Hello and Welcome!

Welcome to the first post of my new Blog!  As many firsts can be awkward and disappointing, I wont shoot too high, giving myself only room to be better from here on in.

The purpose of this blog will be to share the scattered variety of thoughts and experiences I have with the world.  I see this blog as a better platform than Facebook, or Livejournal for the content I want to share.  Facebook being more suited for short quips, and Livejournal being more private.  What are you likely to see posted here?  Anything I want.  To give an idea of my passions though, you will see posts about music, politics, travel, cigars and maybe on that special rare occasion an interaction of all four.  However, anything is fair game.  I will avoid posting just for the sake of posting (more fitting for Facebook), and avoid anything exceedingly personal (more fitting for Livejournal).  It is also my hope that this Blog will get me into the habit of posting with some regularity.

This first post will also enable me to see what the layout of this design will look like.  I may tweak it a bit here and there until it is exactly what I am looking for.

As I am sure many of you know, I just got back from the "Kinetik Music Festival" in Montreal, Canada, so my first few posts will be on that event!