A person of culture will agree that the city of Montreal is perhaps one of the most diverse and culturally expressed places in Canada. The European vibe that engulfs the city is, I think, the ingredient which calls upon many artists and musicians to summon inspiration beyond the standard methods and elaborate on the creative depth of their art. Half Past Four feels it is a great necessity to occasionally play in a city like Montreal because of the belief that the concepts and values of the city greatly match with our music.
In order to experience music to its fullest we often try to play and engage all of our audience’s senses. The ambiance in Club Chez Eux really helped us to obtain that goal since there is nothing that has more of a symbiotic relationship other than atmosphere and music. The club had a sophisticated homey feeling and there is no doubt that we felt comfortable “making ourselves at home” especially while playing on stage since we could hear each other very well. Our set was two hours and we were very eager to hear the other bands who we shared the stage with that night. Something we noticed about our audience was the amount of interaction that occurred. Many people were dancing to our songs, especially during “Rabbit” which you can see the video for on this site. That was very rewarding to watch as it showed us full appreciation. What really surprised me about the audience was the feedback we received between sets and after the show. Many of the people were coming up to us with shocked looks on their faces and a loss for words. The few that they managed to utter conveyed the disbelief that such music could 1. exist in the first place and 2. be possible to play. There was one chap in particular from the audience who I found to be so amusing to watch as he attempted to count the time signatures of our songs with his fingers and grumbled at fail attempts, but what stamina - he never gave up.
But never mind us, we were impressed by the other band that followed us called The Collective Works. You should have seen the combination of instruments they had such as bassoon, cello and clarinet -pretty damn cool.
I was quite satisfied with our performance. At one time, someone in the crowd yelled out to play a drum solo. No one ever requested a drum solo from me during a set so it did kick up my adrenaline but it turned out be alright. Here’s a good tip for drummers: spontaneous drum solos may sound good but practiced and learned can always sound better, so I’ve got some homework to do on my part. A satisfying jam with the musicians from Collective Works and Half Past Four after the performances finished added to our list of things done that weekend. I mean, when you get a chance to improvise with almost an orchestra of great musicians I’m not sure there is anything much better than that.
Overall, this trip was a great start to our Christmas holidays and very important to the band. We got to play, we got to jam, we got to see the amazing Montreal Christmas season sights and we had great fun driving there and back even in a winter storm.
By Ann Brody (Drummer of HPF)
Half Past Four 2010