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Docs en stockThe debut Montreal Ska Festival
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by ERIN MACLEOD Get ready to skank and stomp all weekend, because it’s the first edition of Montreal’s very own Ska Festival. Now, this isn’t the music of the Skatallites so much as music that takes its cue from this city’s longstanding love affair with its own version of the sound that took Jamaica by storm in the early ’60s. The three nights of chicka-boom-chick begins at the only 18-plus event of the festival, a Montreal-Toronto link-up at Petit Campus. Kman and the 45s and Massawippi Skank represent for the 514, and Stop Drop provides a taste of the 416. This will be one of Stop Drop’s last shows ever (they’ve got plans to say farewell at the end of the month), so take the opportunity to see the energetic seven-piece now. Not forgetting the very folks that have kept ska going in our fair city over the past couple of decades, the all-ages fun begins on Saturday night at Club Soda with a concert headlined by the Planet Smashers. It’s possible to say that seeing Leonard Cohen amble past and watching the Planet Smashers sing about the 80 bus are two quintessentially Montreal experiences. Westbound Train brings Boston, Montreal’s sister ska city, to the house, and the Expos, Stepper, Danny Rebel & the KGB and the Hangers round up the rest of the line-up. Pick it up again on Sunday at the same place and time to see a line-up that ranges from the acoustic reggae sounds of Chris Murray to New York’s the Slackers to Montreal’s Fabulous Lolo. That’s Lorraine Muller, previously of the Kingpins, who will be showcasing a range of old favourites—rock steady, reggae and of course ska tunes. The Idlers, an 11-piece from St. John’s, Newfoundland, round out the bill with the Venezuelan/Ottawan strains of Take the Boys and hometown reggae from the Beatdown. Every night the afterparty fun is at Absynthe—but this, of course, isn’t as all ages as the rest. KMAN & THE 45S, STOP DROP, MASSAWIPPI |
