by LORRAINE CARPENTER

“HAAAAAAAAAAA! J’m’ennuie des dimanches ensoleillés à danser sur de la musique joyeuse!!!!!! Ça me revient quand je vois la tonne de neige blanche qui parsème l’horizon...”

Luckily for Eveline, whose above comment appears on Piknic Electronik’s online Livre d’Or, the Piknic crew is preparing a dance party des neiges, the second annual winter edition of the event that draws thousands of people to Parc Jean-Drapeau every Sunday in the summer.

Like last year, three DJs will keep dancers on their toes (snow makes a great dancefloor) on a site adjacent to Piknic’s summer spot under the l’Homme sculpture, currently in use as a skating rink. Party-goers are welcome to skate there, tube down the nearby toboggan hill, huddle together in heated tents, warm their hands around fires, or warm their insides with an interesting array of booze. Last year, organizers stocked enough alcohol for the projected turnout of 1,000 people, but when 3,000 arrived, the bar ran dry.

“At eight-something, there was no more hot wine, Caribou [ran out] close to 9 p.m. and at 9:45, there was no more beer,” says Piknic’s Nicolas Cournoyer, promising a super-stocked bar this year. “At the end, they were drinking vodka straight. People were really partying.”

Back by popular demand, the one-piece ski-suit competition will bring out the blinding neon sportswear and unusual floral patterns of yesteryear (mostly owned since childhood or culled from Village des Valeurs). The very best will win the wearers gift certificates for Misto and tickets to three other Piknic events this winter—the third edition of Nuit Electronik, a MUTEK co-presentation on Nuit Blanche, on Feb. 25; a ski party at Tremblant in April; and the second annual cabane à sucre Electronik, tentatively scheduled for April 23, location TBC.

The first maple-icious field trip, which went down last March in Rougemont, had everything one would expect from a traditional sugaring off experience (plus a wider variety of food for more modern diets), combined with DJs, a snowy dancefloor, horse-drawn tours of the site and an after-dinner bonfire.

Although Piknic’s popularity has allowed for such original ideas to be realized, nearly year-round, it has also threatened to overwhelm its usual site. But so far, so good.

Bonjour Expo

In the spring of 2003, Pascal Lefebvre was touring Parc Jean-Drapeau, looking for a novel party spot for himself and a few friends, all promoters who had worked Spectra’s outdoor festivals and/or been neck-deep in the local live music, theatre and DJ scenes. For some time, they’d wanted to host an electronic event outdoors, during the day, away from smoky clubs and the debauched afterhours atmosphere that taints techno in the minds of many.

“I remember, a year before [Piknic began], going to Arrival,” says Piknic co-founder Michel Quintal, referring to an outdoor rave outside city limits. “In the morning, I was like, ‘Wow, it’s amazing to dance outside in the sun! It felt totally different, just a few hours before, when it was dark.”

With this in mind, Lefebvre was seeking a visually appealing site. He was at the Parc primarily to see the tundra, a location often used for weddings or other special events, but then he wandered over to Place de l’Homme, with its imposing metal sculpture (one of many leftover, half-forgotten treasures from Expo 67), backed by a vast view of downtown Montreal across the water, with a bushy, woodsy picnic area and large pond right around the corner.

“That was the spark,” says Cournoyer. “He talked to me, Louis [-David Loyer] and Michel, and said, ‘We need to do something here,’ and the four of us really felt it from that site.”

As an outdoor music event on a patch of the city’s green space, every Sunday afternoon from May through September, Piknic is not alone. The long-running Tam Tams on Mount Royal draws a diverse crowd, despite its hippie rep, to drum, dance, drink and be merry, but Piknic has an obvious twist.

“People of Montreal love to go [to Tam Tams],” concedes Cournoyer. “After the winter, you chill there, you go at your own pace, if you want to play, you play, if you wanna read, you read, if you wanna be close to the Tam Tam, you’re there. People just enjoy the sun and like to be outside, but we thought, ‘Why couldn’t we do the same thing with electronic music?’”

Mission accomplished

Piknic Electronik’s main mission, as stated on their Web site, is to “democratize” electronic music, a three-fold goal of sorts. They want to draw a different and diverse crowd that doesn’t frequent the afterhours clubs, be they ex-ravers with jobs and kids (there are always a few tots crawling or running on the grass), casual electronic-music fans, or simply people craving sun and picnic ground with a soundtrack. (Unlike other festival sites, there are no restrictions on bringing in food and drink, even though there are beer and hot-dog vendors on hand).

For connoisseurs of electronic music, Piknic presents primarily local DJs, a mix of new talent and established artists like Misstress Barbara and Akufen, rather than the high-priced touring DJs favoured by most clubs. This mandate was borne of financial necessity, but persists to this day, and Quintal suggests that certain afterhours clubs, judging by their suddenly homegrown-heavy line-ups, may have followed their lead.

The primary element of Piknic’s democratization scheme, however, is opening people’s minds to an often misunderstood and underappreciated genre of music.

“We were aware of the prejudice about electronic music,” says Cournoyer. “For many people, techno is just boom-boom-boom-boom, always the same thing, nothing original or artistic. But even people who know electronic music—and it’s a broad form of music, house, techno, minimal, electro, drum & bass—a lot of them stick to one certain style.”

Quintal, who’s in charge of booking) does what most clubs won’t do, pairing diverse DJs for each event, ensuring an assortment of sonic tones and tempos. Even the showcase events, featuring DJs from local labels like MUTEK, Ninja Tune, Musique Risquée and more, tend to cover a lot of ground. By now, the Piknic crowd is used to the smorgasbord of electronic sounds, but organizers and DJs fielded more than a few complaints in their inaugural summer of 2003.

“I remember the time Scott C and Andy Williams were playing funk —” recalls Quintal.

“—and some people said, ‘What’s that fucking shit?’” adds Cournoyer. “They were going to the DJ, saying, ‘I have a CD, just put that on instead, it’ll be better.’ So we had to write on our Livre d’Or that if you wanna come to our event, you need to be open-minded. There’s some stuff you’ll like, there’s some stuff you won’t, but you can come and tell us, don’t go and shit on the DJ.”

Quintal points out that there was positive feedback about the funk as well, “so for one person who doesn’t like it, there are probably four or five that really enjoy discovering something new.”

Overall, Piknic’s base is a commendable crowd—easygoing, open-minded, well-behaved, casually well-dressed, fun and faithful, regardless of the names on the bill and the styles on the soundsystem.

“Initially, we thought that people would come for specific DJs and the crowd would be different every week,” says Quintal. “But, especially in the second year, we realized that people are just coming for the event. They trust that it’s gonna be good and that they’re gonna have fun.”

“Because of the site, because of the amazing view, the ambience around the people dancing, or relaxing by the side of the pond,” adds Cournoyer, “even if they’re not always totally flabbergasted by the music, they know they’ll enjoy the event.”

Shower scenes.

Unless it rains, of course.

Throwing an outdoor party has its unique challenges, including building up and tearing down the soundsystem for roughly 20 consecutive Sundays every year. For the crew, work begins at 7:30 a.m. and wraps around midnight on the day of the event, but they begin anxiously watching the weather as early as Tuesday. “We have a crisis centre,” says Cournoyer, only half joking.

They’ve been fairly lucky over the years, having to cancel Piknic only five times. There have, however, been hairy situations such as last-minute cancellations and sudden mid-afternoon storms. Not that the crowd cares, mind you.

“There was a day two years ago with Saturnin and Phil Larochelle, and it started raining like hell,” recalls Quintal. Cournoyer continues, “We thought that everyone would leave, but there were people hiding in the bushes everywhere and as soon as the rain stopped and the sun started shining, all these wet people came back to the dancefloor. It was just amazing.”

As for this weekend’s weather, the temperature is projected to be an easy +1. Last year, Cournoyer and co. actually lucked out with -7, narrowly missing January’s brutal cold snap. Considering this winter’s volatility, however, organizers couldn’t rule out rain or -30 temperatures, the only two conditions that would force them to cancel, when planning the event. Although Cournoyer seems game for a blizzard or a dip down to -25, he’s aware that most party-goers wouldn’t share his nordique enthusiasm.

“It’s a big risk,” he admits, “but we’re knocking on wood.”

With DJs Stéphane Cocke, Akufen and Mini at Parc Jean-Drapeau on Saturday, Feb. 4, 5 p.m.–11 p.m., free

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