5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Montreal Gazette
Freed: Here's to the beautiful chaos of Montreal summers
I was driving home two weeks ago, working my way though a bewildering maze of street festivals separating me from my home.
St-Laurent Blvd. was closed for 11 days for a street fair from Sherbrooke St. to Mont-Royal Ave.
Mont-Royal was closed for three kilometres for a summer-long street fest.
Nearby, Rachel Ave. was mobbed by a big Portuguese festival where families danced, while munching on bifana sandwiches.
Unsure how to get home, I consulted Google Maps, which replied:
'HA! HA! You've got to be kidding. No way you're getting there by car.'
OK, I'm exaggerating, but it almost seems possible as our city explodes with summer festivals and closed streets, while a hundred traffic jams bloom.
But I'm not complaining, just admiring the beautiful chaos that I love about this city every summer.
What chaos?
The meandering mobs: In Montreal, we shut down streets for summer as casually as other cities shut their street lights each morning.
If you could watch from overhead, you'd see a vast citywide river of humanity streaming through never-ending street festivals.
Everyone weaves in and out of each other's way on foot, bike, e-scooter e-bike, hoverboard, baby stroller and the occasional unicycle. All while skirting orange cones that have been there for so many years they have permanent resident status and may qualify for health coverage.
It's utter anarchy, with no rules, yet it flows seamlessly: uncontrolled but controlled at the same time.
It's Montreal!
Free festivities: In festival season, our city becomes one vast, crowded living room and everyone's invited, from Grand Prix high rollers to the unhoused.
There's no admission, whether it's the N.D.G. Porchfest, Monkland street fair or St-Laurent/Bernard/Duluth/Carifête/Circus street fests.
In the last two weeks, I've seen free Spanish sidewalk troubadours, Portuguese castanet players and Caribbean trumpeters.
And with the jazz fest starting, free-dom has only begun.
Last Friday night I went to the Francos de Montréal festival to see a well-known 'rap slameur' from France named 'Grand Corps Malade.'
More than 50,000 people from every corner of Earth were jammed into the Quartier des Spectacles, but it felt as warm and intimate as a small jazz club.
The French performer revealed he had moved to Montreal last year, and the crowd cheered endlessly as he talked about his new love for snowblowers.
He even sang a poetic love song to Montreal in French with lines like:
'Des grosses voitures qui klaxonnent …
et l'influence Anglo-Saxonne.'
(The big trucks that honk
and the Anglo-Saxon influence.)
He finished the song with this line:
'Et moi aussi je connais des mots: GO HABS GO!'
(And I, too, know the words: GO HABS GO!)
The immense crowd went wild, holding up tens of thousands of phone flashlights in a four-block homemade light show.
It was an utterly beautiful Montreal moment that could happen almost nowhere else on the continent.
Toronto can't shut down an array of major streets like us all summer. Premier Doug Ford is already busy trying to tear down three of Toronto's bike lanes to 'fight traffic congestion.'
Meanwhile in the U.S., if our massive ethnically diverse audiences ever showed up at an event, they'd call in ICE to deport half the crowd.
Controlled chaos: Our festival organizers move fences, barriers and massive crowds around like grandmasters moving chess pieces.
They throw up giant screens in hours with better reception than my TV. They put up 5,000-person rain tents on Ste-Catherine St. faster than I could erect a two-man pup tent.
Only theirs don't leak.
After each show, small trucks tour the streets cleaning up beer stains before they dry and hauling away garbage in bags the size of duplexes.
In fact, the festival zone's streets are cleaner during its massive festivals than they are the rest of the year.
Maybe we should give our major festival organizers the keys to city hall, then let them run the rest of the city.
Jazz fest for mayor!
Peace, no police: Everything's made easier by mellow Montrealers, well-behaved crowds that never swing anything more dangerous than a hip.
Decade after decade, we gather in vast multitudes at the jazz fest, Carifête, Osheaga, Grand Prix and other mega events, yet we've never had a bad incident.
There are fewer disputes at our giant Montreal festivals than there are at bingo night in a Chicago seniors' home.
Years ago, I brought a showbiz friend from L.A. to our jazz fest and she freaked out in the densely packed crowds, warning me how dangerous a mob can get when it panics.
She knew: she'd been at the Rodney King riots.
I told her this wasn't L.A., just routine Montreal festival foot traffic, but she wouldn't believe me and demanded we leave NOW!
Then, amid the mob I spotted someone I knew and hauled my friend over to meet her. It was my mom, then in her late 80s, swinging her hips to the music.
My L.A. friend's face instantly changed from a tense grimace to a big grin and we spent a long, lovely night there.
So as summer gets into gear, be sure to drop in on the festivities.
Don't forget to bring your mother.
