{"id":1232,"date":"2012-09-04T01:25:49","date_gmt":"2012-09-04T05:25:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fmeat.org\/blog\/?p=1232"},"modified":"2017-08-14T15:22:21","modified_gmt":"2017-08-14T15:22:21","slug":"1232","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fmeat.org\/blog\/1232\/","title":{"rendered":"Closing Day Peace, Love, and Death Metal"},"content":{"rendered":"

The derri\u00e8re numbing 7 hour drive back to Toronto from Rouyn (one of the first great monikers I\u2019ve learned for that place is \u201cLoin-Noranda\u201d[\u2026or, \u201cfar-Noranda\u201d]) allowed ample time for my colleague Harvey M\u00e9tal and I to debrief on the highlights of this year\u2019s festival\u2026<\/p>\n

\u2026The closing day was bittersweet as always, but a downright beautiful segue of beachfront idyll to politically charged hip-hop to the thundering double-kick mayhem of Le nuit M\u00e9tal (Metal Night).<\/p>\n

The stunning new floating venue at Plage Kiwanis (Kiwanis beach) was the perfect location for the free closing show. The beach was happily packed with an all-walks-of-life crowd, soaking in the perfect sunset, which framed the stage and set the mood for great performances by Bernard Adamus , Dumas and Jean-Piere Ferland.<\/p>\n

I had to cut my beach time short however, to make it back to the hip-hop show at Agora Des Arts for an amazing set from Koriass. The originality, impeccable flow and raw crowd pleasing power of the top French-Canadian hip-hop acts is stunning. Groups such as, Radio Radio, Gatineau, Alaclair Ensemble and the closing night\u2019s acts are developing a following far beyond French Canada.<\/p>\n

I was unprepared, though, for the sheer intensity of the much anticipated closing set from Loco Locass, which very nearly brought the former church down.<\/p>\n

Unless you\u2019ve been spending your summer beneath varied rocks, you\u2019ve probably heard of Quebec\u2019s summer of university student strikes, the pots and pans protests\u2026 and of course a provincial election campaign. Tension is palpable. Whatever your political stripe, no-one can fail to be impressed by the level of political awareness and engagement displayed by youth (and not so youth) at a Quebecois hip-hop show. Loco Locass closed with a catchy number called \u201cLib\u00e9rez-nous des lib\u00e9raux\u201d <\/strong>(the translation should be fairly easy). By the first chorus, I was deeply concerned about the structural integrity of the floor.<\/p>\n

Comparatively, Metal Night at Le Petit Th\u00e9\u00e2tre was actually kind of mild. Hyperbole of course\u2026 (plus I don\u2019t want to offend any fans of Obey the Brave who displayed nary a sign of mildness in the mosh pit).<\/p>\n

Fun Facts: Did you know that there are regional variations of mosh pits? (Quebecer death metal aficionados prefer \u201cthe circle pit\u201d) Did you also know that there is an unwritten, but well understood code of conduct in a mosh pit that maintains a type of anarcho-aggressive equilibrium and keeps people from killing each other? They should give workshops at next year\u2019s FME.<\/p>\n

Maybe it was the 4 day non-stop marathon of musical merry making or the double kick drums thundering at a frequency that perfectly resonated in my chest cavity, but I was ready to call it a night before the last act hit the stage.<\/p>\n

Our friends had reached a similar breaking point and retreated to Chez Morasse for one last Italian poutine.<\/p>\n

More closing thoughts soon, my friends\u2026<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Cheers,<\/p>\n

Zeus<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The derri\u00e8re numbing 7 hour drive back to Toronto from Rouyn (one of the first great monikers I\u2019ve learned for that place is \u201cLoin-Noranda\u201d[\u2026or, \u201cfar-Noranda\u201d]) allowed ample time for my colleague Harvey M\u00e9tal and I to debrief on the highlights of this year\u2019s festival\u2026 \u2026The closing day was bittersweet as always, but a downright beautiful … Continuer la lecture de Closing Day Peace, Love, and Death Metal<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[622,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1232","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fme12","category-non-classe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fmeat.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1232","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fmeat.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fmeat.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fmeat.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fmeat.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1232"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.fmeat.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1232\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1308,"href":"https:\/\/www.fmeat.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1232\/revisions\/1308"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fmeat.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1232"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fmeat.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1232"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fmeat.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1232"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}