Tag: Waterloo

A feast of festivals

In Canada, weather dictates that outdoor festival is pretty short. That’s why I found that timing and programming of Kitchener’s Summer Lights Festival pretty smart. This night of “exploration and discovery” in downtown Kitchener, ran from 8 pm to 1 am, which meant that it started right after the Multicultural Festival in nearby Victoria Park ended. And, it was held in coordination with the Open Ears Festival of Music and Sound and the Our World Festival of Music.

Not only a clever way of allowing people to attend many festivals at once, but it also made the one event much more big and interesting than any of them would have been alone.

They blocked off part of King Street in Kitchener, so you ended up exploring it in that way. (I got suddenly curious about Fritsch Fragrances, Inc., which looks like it’s about 100 years old. Does it really only sell fragrances? Is that a viable business model?) A number of the restaurants and stores were open. Food carts and trucks were on the streets, as were installations such as:

  • The community couch (sit and talk to strangers—which I didn’t)
  • The black light post (get painted and glow)
  • Painters of the night (artists painting on the street, that is)
  • Board game zone
  • Henna tatoo station

Etc. The public buildings were also transformed—the KW Symphony building became a 90s house dance club (pretty dead one at first, but it did liven up later); the inside of City Hall an old-time arcade and Rock Band performance site; and The Museum a live concert venue (featuring a Very! Loud! rock band when we walked in), with an “alternative” market.

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Lighting up the City Hall fountain at the Summer Lights Festival

The range of music and sound on the streets was quite astonishing. Open Ears brought in the weird but cool experimental stuff: the art installation featuring percussion instruments the public could bash away on; the arrangement of different musicians and styles all around the city hall fountain; the classical musicians providing a live soundtrack to a silent French surrealistic movie.

Then there was the AcaBellas, doing their best Pitch Perfect mash-up of Daft Punk’s “Get Lucky” with, well, two other songs that I’m sure are really famous and popular… And the jazz group performing ‘”What a Wonderful World” in front of a dance floor. (Jean refused to shake his groove thing, though, citing improper footwear and a dislike of rhumba.) Along with the more expected folk guitarists and bands doing classic rock covers.

Kitchener, Ontario, Canada
The lovely Alysha Brilla

The definite highlight for us, though, was the performance by the woman who convinced us to get out there past by our bedtime in the first place: Alysha Brilla. Her style of music is mix of jazz, pop, and Latin. We know of her mainly because CBC—even the news channel—plays her music a lot (for which she thanked them during her performance). We started watching her from afar, then got closer, until I, at least, couldn’t resist joining the crowd dancing right in front of the stage. She was terrific at egging us all on.

Kitchener, Ontario, Canada
Dance party in Kitchener!

I did not, however, volunteer to go up and dance on stage. Those who did, had some serious skills!

All in all, one of the funnest concerts we’ve been to in a while. We really got lifted.

Alysha Brilla – LIfted, live (Toronto performance)

Alysha Brilla, Two Shots – official music video

Guide to dining in Waterloo region

I’ve been doing “web stuff” a long time, and some of my old pages come up shockingly high in Google search results. For example, when searching on the best places to eat in Kitchener Waterloo, my page was sometimes on that first page of results. Despite the contents being increasingly out of date.

So I finally decided to write a new one, and post it here: Guide to dining in Waterloo region

It includes only independent restaurants and is based on my personal opinion that:

  • Quality beats quantity
  • Conversation is an important part of the dining experience
  • So is wine (often)

It’s a longish page, but includes original photography, and the opportunity to find out:

  • Where coffee and scotch come together at last, in a place that’s way too cool for me (but I go anyway)
  • Which restaurants have lost my business for being too bloody noisy
  • Which place’s sandwiches make me swoon (and I don’t even like sandwiches)
  • Where to get good sushi (rather than all you can eat sushi)
  • Why it’s sometimes worth the drive to Cambridge—or even Singhampton

And finally—RIP, Marisol. We’ll miss you.

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But we look forward to hearing about chef Jeff Ward’s upcoming new venture in downtown Kitchener.

Follow-ups

Some recent-ish news about subjects previously featured in this blog…

KW Glee, who blew us away with their performance with the KW Symphony earlier this year, proved that performance was no fluke as they were named Show Choir Canada’s Grand Champions. They also won best vocal, choreography, show design, and new choir. Unsurprisingly, their spring concert is sold out! We’re going to have to be more on the ball for tickets if want to see them in concert again.

As for the TV show that inspired KW Glee, the last two season 5 Glee episodes featuring Adam Lambert — “Trio” and “New New York” turned out to be… Pretty good, actually. Not so good that I feel the need to watch more episodes of Glee or anything, but worth watching for more than the Lambert pretty.

Adam Lambert himself has been in full promotional mode this week, as his new single has been released.  “Ghost Town” is incredibly catchy and rather, as long you’re OK with the house style (which  I am). Now that I’m no longer in a grief fog, I’ve also been re-listening to his Trespassing album. It’s quite good (and more than just distracting pop, really); very surprising it wasn’t a bigger success. Let’s hope he gets the success he deserves with the new album, out in June.

Adam Lambert on radio
And he’s still handsome. Guess that’s not news.

.But the other “Americans” I’ve been watching, Elizabeth and Phillip, have been recognized with a Peabody Award for Quality in Television. Well-deserved, I think; we’re nearly done watching Season 1 of The Americans and the show only get more complicated and fascinating as it goes. Apparently it’s just as good (or even better) through seasons 2 and 3. Great viewing ahead!

Lights, camera, gala! Singin’ in the Rain

When we arrived at the KW Symphony’s gala fundraising dinner, we immediately noticed a glamorous-looking woman in a shimmery dress with a long train that we made a mental note not to step on. Next thing we knew, after getting a drink from the bar, she was introducing herself to us.

I’m Patricia Ward Kelly. Gene Kelly’s wife.

That would be Gene Kelly, actor, dancer, director, and star of Singin’ in the Rain, the greatest musical of all time. And no, Ms. Kelly is not 90 years old; she’s maybe 50?

“Big age difference when they met,” I told Jean, after we’d thanked her for talking to us and moved off into the next room. He was a bit stunned, not having read about Patricia Kelly in advance, as I had.

Everyone got dolled up for this “black tie optional” affair, which is always kind of fun. (Though I only have a picture of me, not a set of the well-dressed crowd.)

Me in a dress

We weren’t able to convince any of our friends to join us at this affair, though, so we were seated with three other couples we didn’t know. (Should have been four, but one set was a no-show.) They proved to be good company. We had interesting conversations on topics such as travel, books, and Future Shop (which had suddenly closed that morning).

The event was held in the ballroom of the Crown Plaza Hotel (so, far from the pool smell…). Cocktails started at 4:30, dinner at 5:30, and they did an exemplary job of getting through speeches, an auction, and the three-course meal in time for us to get to Centre in the Square for the show.

As for the food, I think everyone was happy with the salad appetizer and the dessert, which was a choice of carrot or chocolate truffle cake.

Salad
Le salade

For the entree, I overheard some complaints of it being cold or the meat tough. Maybe just luck of the draw, then, but Jean and I found our meals quite fine.

Chicken entree

For the auction, it was interesting that bidding was fiercest for the items that were essentially donations: for sending a school to a concert or for the symphony’s music therapy program. Instead of just taking the largest bids, Patricia Ward Kelly suggested accepting all the highest bids as multiple donations. Good idea!

She herself was quite a good speaker, talking of her meeting with Gene Kelly, when she didn’t know who the heck he was, and how they fell in love, and she’s become the keeper of his legacy. She’s never remarried. She was also very gracious about the community and the symphony organization.

The final part of the evening was at Centre in the Square (taxi ride to and from included), where Singin’ in the Rain was played with a voice-only soundtrack, and the KW Symphony played all the music live. Ms. Kelly spoke briefly here as well, and one of the items she told us was that all the original scores were thrown out by the studio, and had to be re-created later, by ear.

Evan Mitchell came back from Kingston to do the conducting of this show, and he did an amazing job of keeping the symphony in sync with film being shown. All really seamless, except for occasionally hearing the musicians turn the pages!

Jean concluded he hadn’t ever seen the entire movie before. For me, it was certainly the first time I’d seen it on the big screen. It’s so good! And for once, it totally made sense to applaud in the middle and at the end of a movie.

Good Mornin’ from Singin’ in the Rain.— the only song Debbie Reynolds actually sang in this movie. Otherwise, her voice was dubbed. Ironically. (This is I learned only last night…)

After the performance there was another reception downstairs, in the fancy member’s lounge. While it was nice to be in that room again (and get more desserts!), it wasn’t a terribly entertaining event, so we didn’t stay too long. We ended up cabbing back to the Crown Plaza with the Assistant Conductor of the KW Symphony.

Singin’ in the Rain plays again tonight (without all the gala accoutrements).

Back to Bhima’s

Last weekend we went out for our “late for me, slightly early for him” birthday dinner. After much hemming and hawing, we decided to on Bhima’s Warung, a restaurant we hadn’t been to in a few years.

It was much busier than we remembered! We asked the waitress if that was unusual, but she was said no, it was typical—even on weekdays. It’s not that big a place; the couple seated next to us joked about how we were basically dining together, our tables were so close.

Bhima’s offers the cuisine of Asia prepared using French culinary techniques. Definitely makes for an original menu.

This day they were also offering a surprise six-course menu based on the foods of Sumatra, for $47. Partly just out of laziness, Jean decided to go with that. I was not obliged to join in with him on it, though, so I puttered through the menu, which was made even more complex by the addition of three special appetizers and entrees that day.

Since we don’t get to Bhima’s that often, I wanted a sampling of items. The waitress described my ordered amount as somewhat “challenging” in terms of quantity. But she did point out that most of their dishes taste even better reheated the next day.

We didn’t take notes, so there’s no going through everything we eat (which is probably a relief to you). I will say that everything was very good, marking an improvement over previous visits, where the food could be uneven.

And we do have some photos.

Oysters at Bhima's
Oysters times two

Oyster are ordered by the piece, so we went with two from the regular menu, in warm lemongrass, ginger, chili, and garlic sauces, and two that were specials of the day: an oyster shooter in vodka.

Squid with rujak salad
Squid with ‘rujak’ salad

I also tried the regular menu sotong goreng sama rujak, or tapioca and garlic fried squid in roasted chili, lime, and hoisin glaze with ‘rujak’ salad. Very nice; great texture on the squid.

Shrimp items
Shrimp and ?

One of Jean’s courses featured shrimp and… Stuff we can’t remember.

Monkfish and lobster ball
Another Jean menu item: This one was monkfish and lobster ball

My main involved rabbit done three ways (a special), and it did indeed make a fine leftover. 🙂 Dessert for me was a tapioca and ice cream concoction, while Jean’s menu concluded with ice cream made of something we’d never heard of and now can’t remember—but tasted very good—along with some sort of pastry or apple or something. (Look, it was a lot of food!)

Bhima's dessert
Mystery ice cream with mystery other things

It’s not a fine dining experience, but the dining was still quite fine. We should notify Where to Eat in Canada that Bhima’s is once more worthy of inclusion.

Valentine / Family Day weekend

We originally thought of taking a day trip this long weekend—maybe do some snowshoeing—but the record cold temperatures dissuaded us from that plan. Instead we found entertainment closer to home.

Friday night we had dinner with friends at Aqua, the new seafood restaurant in the not-so-new Crowne Plaza Hotel. The service was a little iff-y—bit inattentive—but the food was pretty good. We all went with the Valentine’s special menu. The highlights were the beet soup with smoked trout, the ravioli and beef entree Jean had, and the two desserts: A chocolate mousse cake and a cookie with ice cream concoction. We all concluded we’d eat here again, amidst that special chlorinated pool ambiance. 🙂

Afterward we all attended a symphony concert. It started with a modern piece that our friend accurately described as interesting, but not that musical. Then we got Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concert no. 2 in C minor. For me, this would be the number 3 Rachmaninoff piano concerto I have heard live, and he is three for three in my books. I always enjoy them. The second movement of this one sounds so much “All By Myself” that Eric Carmen still pays royalties to Rachmininoff’s estate. (True fact!) The third movement was lively and sensual. The featured pianist was an attractive and obviously talented young woman named Natasha Paremski.

The second half of the concert featured Rachmaninoff’s Symphonic Dances, which was also good though, for me, not as good as the piano concerto.

Saturday was actual Valentine’s Day, and we don’t generally go to restaurants then. But it being a holiday, I decided to make a nicer dinner.

I tried a new (to me) Jamie Oliver recipe for slow-cooked duck pasta. We weren’t able to buy the duck until that morning, and it was frozen, so the main challenge was getting it defrosted in time for dinner that day. That required a whole lot of rinsing.

Otherwise, the recipe wasn’t tough: Just required time. The duck cooked at 350 for 2 hours, in its juices, and I had to turn it every half hour. Then in a fry pan I sauteed some pancetta, then I added various vegetables and some can tomatoes and red wine to make a pasta sauce. After the duck cooled, we removed the meat from it, and added that to the sauce. Then it was a matter of cooking rigatoni and mixing it all together, topped with Parmesan.

by Jamie Oliver. Valentine Dinner at home

Quite delish. We served it with a Chateauneuf du pape.

For dessert I made a chocolate mousse cake. No flour, just cocoa, unsweetened, and bittersweet chocolate with eggs and Cool Whip, basically. It was another new recipe (to me), and it turned out well—not too sweet, good texture.

.... or is that chocolate mousse? Too much wine with dinner .. Valentine Dinner with my one and only :)

But we weren’t done eating yet. 🙂

Sunday we braved the cold and drove to Wilk’s Bar, which is at Langdon Hall, for lunch. It isn’t a cheap place (though cheaper than the Langdon Hal dining room), but they do a nice job.

Valentine Lunch at Wilke's Bar at Langdon Hall

We had the “From the Land” sharing platter to start, along with four oysters. The oysters were amazing. The land platter was fine, but not outstanding. The highlight of that was probably the almonds!

Valentine Lunch at Wilke's Bar at Langdon Hall
Muskox stew with mushroom risotto in the background

Both of the lunch entrees were very good, though. I had the wild mushroom risotto and Jean had muskox stew. The glasses of wine were quite nice, also.

But no time (or room, really) for dessert, as we had tea dance tickets for 2:00. After a detour to the wrong location, we got to that event around 2:15. It was a fun time, and a chance to work off some of the food—especially dancing to “Jump, Jive, and Wail”! Wow, that’s a fast song. (Which is why the wailing after the jiving, I guess.)

And then, we dashed to a 4:20 showing of The Theory of Everything at the Princess. Pretty interesting movie about the relationship between Stephen Hawking and his first wife, Jane. Definitely shows the challenges of her having to cope with his increasingly serious illness. Though of course, as we know, he continued to do amazing physics work through it all.

Then we were ready to go back home and relax. Family Day was pretty quiet, and that suited us just fine. Especially as we got some news Sunday night that definitely had us thinking about family.

KW Glee

I am really, really surprised how much I am enjoying this concert.

— Jean, at intermission

Tuesday night we went to see KW Glee perform with the Kitchener Waterloo Symphony at Centre in the Square. KW Glee is a show choir that was, in fact, inspired by the TV show Glee. So they sing pop music, and they don’t just stand there while they’re doing that—all their numbers are choreographed.

glee-dont-stop-believin
The inspiration

What’s different from the TV show? Well, this show choir is much bigger; they have many featured vocalists, not just one girl (Rachel) and one boy (Finn) who do most of the lead singing; and especially; no auto-tune!

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The actuality

And what voices, my friend. My goodness, such talent in this community. I’m wondering which of these young people will break out as a  huge star some day. Seems likely at least one of them will.

The set list consisted mostly of what kids are listening to these days, which meant that—honestly—I did not know many of the songs. In some cases I hadn’t even heard of the artist. (VV Brown?)

No matter, They had us at the opening number, a mashup of “Some Nights” by Fun and “End of Time” by Beyoncé, performed by choir only, then carried us through as the Symphony joined in on “Counting Stars” by One Republic mashed with “Wake Me Up” by Avicii.

And then we got Junior Glee, all on their own. Oh, my goodness. These are the 9 to 12 year olds, and they are mostly girls (Senior Glee is somewhat more gender balanced), but their first number featured three young boys singing Bruno Mars’ “Treasure”. They were both adorable and deeply impressive at conveying this love song.

In the introduction by artistic director Amanda Kind, we were told that the youth auditioned based on vocal talent only. All the dancing, they’d have to learn in their 12-week rehearsal period.

But some of them obviously have some additional dance training. “Say Something” (by A Great Big World and Christina Aguilera) was performed as a vocal duet, with two of the choir members dancing. It was lovely—reminded me of the performance of this song on “So You Think You Can Dance” (and nearly brought me to tears).

“Say Something” on So You Think You Can Dance

Kelly Clarkson’s “A Moment Like This” (a rather sappy song, that) was another that featured two other talented dancers.

Adding to the excitement were a great number of costume changes. I don’t know how many, but we didn’t have time to get sick of any particular outfit, let me tell you. (It must have been chaos backstage.) For example, for all-ladies singing of Britney Spears’ “Toxic”, the singers were all in sexy black and red. For Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance”, the outfits were more eccentric. For Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” mashed with Rhianna’s “Disturbia”, more scary.

For the James Bond Medley, the guys were all dapper in suits, of course. For “Shake It Out” by Florence and the Machine, the lead singer was in a lovely red dress, while the rest of the choir wore black, representing the demons being “shaken off”, per the song lyrics. You get the idea,

And the Symphony? Well, honestly, they were very much in the background—especially in first half. Staging-wise, they literally were seated way back, to allow for so many singers and dancers to do their thing in the front part of  stage. But, they did get to shine more in the second half, which featured more quiet numbers. They actually started playing the second half—the James Bond theme—before any singers were on stage.

And there’s no doubt that throughout, these talented musicians provided solid backing. There’s nothing like live music. And everything was a world premiere, friends. There has never before been a full concert of show choir + symphony. All the scores—all of them—were written especially for this concert by conductor Trevor Wagler.

Another highlight to mention was the performance of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah”. Obviously, this one has been done by lots of singers. KW Glee had four young men from Senior Glee perform it. Simply the fact of it being sung by four people instead of the usual soloist made you forget about comparing it with past covers, as each did a nice job on his own and their voices mingled beautifully when they sang together. The orchestration was also fantastic. Though the audience probably could have been popping up all night, this is one place where a standing ovation occurred mid-concert.

That was fantastic! It was just amazing.

— Jean, after the concert

A terrific report on the concert by SpokeTV—starting with a bit of “Hallelujah”

Set list:

  • Some Nights (Fun) / End of Time (Beyonce)
  • Counting Starts (One Republic) / Wake Me Up (Avicii)
  • Treasure (Bruno Mar)
  • Toxic (Britney Spears)
  • Bye Bye Bye (N’Sync)
  • Bad Romance (Lady Gaga)
  • Disturbia (Rhianna) / Thriller (Michael Jackson)
  • Say Something (A Great Big World & Christina Aguilera)
  • Beside You (Marianas Trench)
  • Brave (Sara Bareilles)
  • Viva La Vida (Coldplay) / Firework (Katy Perry)

Intermission

  • James Bond Medley: Bond Theme / Live and Let Die (Paul McCartney) / Another Way to Die (Jack White & Alicia Keys) / Skyfall (Adele)
  • Turning Tables (Adele)
  • No Good Woman (Elise LeGrow) / Rumour Has It (Adele)
  • Shark in the Water (VV Brown)
  • Shake It Out (Florence and the Machine)
  • Hallelujah (Leonard Cohen)
  • A Moment Like This (Kelly Clarkson)
  • Let It Be (The Beatles)
  • See Your Star (KW Glee original, written by Jason Berry)

The Book of Mormon

I guess we attended a fair number of shows at Centre in the Square last season, because this summer they offered us a free StarCentre membership, whose main benefit is the opportunity to buy tickets in advance. And the first pre-sale opportunity was tickets for The Book of Mormon in December.

I really wanted to see Book of Mormon even though I really knew nothing about this musical, other than:

  • It was supposed to be really good.
  • It was supposed to be really funny.
  • It was written by the same guys who did South Park.
  • It somehow did involve characters who were Mormons.

The mood for the evening was set early, as we greeted on the corner by an actual Mormon (or so he said, but why would he lie? And he definitely had the outfit) who gave us a free copy of the actual Book of Mormon. (And thus I learned there was an actual Book of Mormon.)

In a bid to find parking at this sold-out performance, we had arrived early, and so decided to take advantage of another membership benefit: The opportunity to use the exclusive Member’s Lounge downstairs, before the show.

That was quite lovely. The room is beautiful and you’re definitely treated like an all-star: Take your coat, show you to a seat, take your drink order, bring it to you with free popcorn. A large-screen TV counts down the time until show start, so you don’t miss anything. Use the washroom without having to line up first.

(The drink prices were rather high, mind you. Luxury has its price, and here it’s $12 for a glass of Pinot.)

Our pre-sale purchase had garnered us seats in row A, which has extra leg room—a bit wasted on us, but pleasant nonetheless.

And on with the show.

The Book of Mormon trailer

Sometimes Kitchener gets “discount” versions of Broadway show, but this one was a proper production, with the full, A-list cast and elaborate sets. And it was everything I expected it to be: good, funny, South Park-y, Mormon-y. But it was full of surprises, too.

It is, to some extent, mocking religion in general, and the modern, American religion of Mormonism in particular. It definitely highlighted some of the odder aspects of that faith’s dogma, which I hadn’t previously been familiar with. (It does not, by the way, touch on the issue of bigamy at all.) It reminded me of the infamous South Park episode where they took on the even more modern, American religion of Scientology.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dl_pVif9x00

South Park: The Truth About Scientology Revealted

But it isn’t simple-minded or mean in its mocking. By setting most of the piece in the troubled country of Uganda, it also ends up showing how religion can be helpful, and comforting, and empowering—as long as its allowed to be flexible.

And now I’ve made the musical sound somewhat serious, when it’s not at all—it’s hilarious, in ways obvious and subtle (like coffee being the big temptation for a Mormon!). I think that’s the genius of it. At the time, you’re just being shocked and surprised and thoroughly entertained. But later on, you’re giving it deeper thought (or I am, anyway).

If you get a chance to see this production, I encourage you to do so. Even if you think you don’t like musicals.

(As long as you’re not offended by coarse language. Viewer discretion is advised. 🙂 )

November was a heavy month

At least in terms of activities. (And the news. But I won’t be getting into that here.)

I’ve already blogged about dining at Gilt and taking in Nightshift; seeing Swing in concert; and listening to Who’s Next live in the tiny seats at Massey Hall. Now a summary of the rest.

Footloose the Musical: Not just a frolic

What I remember of Footloose the movie is that a preacher in a small town has banned dancing. Kevin Bacon moves to that town, takes up with the minister’s daughter, and dances his way into convincing the town to lift the ban.

Footloose the Musical, which we saw at the St. Jacob’s Playhouse, was very well-done, but the sadness running through the whole piece was a surprise to me. If also in the movie, I had forgotten about the abandoning father, the dead son and brother, the silenced women. Those people really needed to dance!

Jean was mostly sad that a piece that we first saw as contemporary is now an item of nostalgia.

A 100-mile feast with 7000 km theme

It’s somewhat confusing that 100-mile dinner of local food has a theme of A Tour of Italy, a country 7169 km away (says Google). But that’s what the Waterloo Inn had an offer, as sponsored by the Chamber of Commerce and in benefit of local physician recruitment.

It was the place to be if you wanted to network. We were there for the food, but gathered up various business cards nonetheless. We were encouraged to Tweet during dinner, and so I did, and as a real rarity, also acted as food “photographer.” (I did all five courses, but will stick to three here.)

The Importance of Being Earnest: Reliably entertaining

I’ve seen the play before, I’ve seen the movie, yet I didn’t hesitate when invited to the University of Waterloo production of this Oscar Wilde play—and not only because the tickets were free (for me, because I’m special :-). I never remember the story that well; just that I really enjoyed watching it play out! This production, in the newly renovated Humanities Theatre, was no exception.

More people need to go to Marisol

We dined there before the Swing concert, and it was lovely as always, but alarmingly quiet for a Friday night. More people need to find this place! We can’t keep losing the area’s best restaurants.

Christmas parties

Some companies still have these. If yours doesn’t, I recommend marrying into one that does. It’s worked out for me.

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Writers on music: Like dancing about architecture?

That’s the saying, eh, that writing is about music is like dancing about architecture. Well, the KW Symphony begs to differ, and recently had a concert featuring novelists Miriam Toews and Wayne Grady, whose recent books (All My Puny Sorrows and Emancipation Day) have musicians as main characters.

Each novelist got half of the program, in which they read from their work, had the symphony play a piece related to what they read, discussed music and writing with the conductor, then listened to a modern work by the symphony and read a response to that.

it was a fascinating evening. The symphony were “forced” into genres they don’t typically tackle—jazz and piano concertos (featuring a lovely soloist from Wilfrid Laurier), and I’m sure the novelists hadn’t been previously familiar with the work they commented on.

And I have two new novels on my reading list.

Swing in concert: Tout le monde debout, c’est le temps de danser!

Le Groupe Swing is a franco-Ontarian band that we first discovered at a Canada Day concert in the Ottawa region about seven years ago. As soon as they came on and started playing, the whole crowd was on their feet, and pretty much stayed there. (Whereas they sat for the headliner.) And I became an instant fan of their music, a fusion of traditional folk with elements of hip-hop and techno: Technotrad, they call it.

A taste of Swing: Bouge, bouge

I’d been wanting to see them in concert again ever since, but what the singing mostly in French, Southern Ontario is not a regular destination for them. So I was very excited to see, up on the ad screen at the Princess Cinema, that Swing would be performing at Victoria Pavillon on November 14, courtesy of L’association francophone de Kitchener-Waterloo.

I was wondering how the KW crowd would respond to them compared with the Gatineau one. I’ve found KW audiences to be rather staid and quite reluctant to get up and dance—to a frustrating degree, at times. So I wasn’t too optimistic on that front.

I did predict that part of the crowd might be drawn from Swing’s occasional appearances at local French high schools, and that age group was represented, along with older association members (one assumes). I wasn’t expecting quite so many little kids as there were, however. (Let’s hope those kids aren’t too, too familiar with French Canadian slang, as some of their lyrics are a bit—edgy.)

And did the crowd all jump to their feet at the first note Swing played? No! Absolutely not.

But to be fair, they started with cover—all in English—of “Born to Be Wild”. It was a serviceable version, and I like the song, but I didn’t want watered-down, anglicized Swing.

I needn’t have worried. The rest of the set was almost entirely their music, and when singer Michel Bénac pointed out the big dance space in front of the stage, a stalwart four headed right up there to dance, and stayed pretty much the whole evening.

Furthermore, to my surprise, they were joined by more and more people as the evening went on. I was up there by about song 4, Jean resisted until about song 10, and the other couple we went with finally made their way up there as well, for the final set of songs. The band’s music is just irresistible, the singer determined that we are all going to have a good time!

“C’est un party avec Swing!” And it was.

They definitely included most of my favorite songs of theirs—La tête me tourne encore (“You make my head spin—in a good way”), Au nom du père et du fils et du set carré (“In the name of the father, the son, and the square dance”), Belle débousollée (“Beautiful distraught woman”), La vie comme ca (“Life as it is”), and “One Day” (the song wherein they rib anglophones).

Hey, everything’s OK, because one day soon, we’ll all be just…

The crowd’s favorites (which I also like) were La Goutte (“The Drip”)—“You know this one!” commented Bénac appreciatively (in French)—and the encore, “CB Buddy”.

La Goutte (y’a pas d’high speed, y’a pas d’download, y’a pas d’Livefeed…)

But we were also treated to some of their very latest songs, such as the single released just last week, “C’Okay” (it got to number 6 on iTunes, by the way), and songs from their recent EP, such as “One Thought”, and even a song that won’t be released for a few months yet. So at least at two live premieres of their music.

And, when we all needed a rest from dancing and hopping—including Michel Bénac (who appears to me to be in amazing shape)—we partook of a camp sing-a-long of eighties classics such as “Billy Jean”, “Every Breath You Take“, “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun“ (for the girls), and for the guys—“Baby” by Bieber! Psych!

The between-song patter fun and friendly and all in franglais, except for one shout-out to the anglos in the audience, who were thanked for coming and “being the minority for once. Feels weird, eh?”

Apart from Bénac, the band has a DJ who also does some hip-hop dancing, a violinist, a guitarist, a bass player, and a drummer. Unfortunately, the acoustics (or the sound system?) in that room were not very good. Nevertheless, we could tell they had a high degree of musicianship.

Swing is really one of the best live bands I’ve ever seen.

“So good they can even get Kitchener-ites and Waterloo-vians to their feet.”