WHAT ABOUT LES FRANCOS?
Anglos are overlooking this fest
Montreal’s second-biggest music festival kicks off Friday, and anglos couldn’t care less.
Les Francos de Montréal (previously Les FrancoFolies) is our city ’s largest musical gathering after the Montreal International Jazz Festival. Organized by the same folks who put on the jazz fest, at the same downtown site, with ticketed and free shows every night in styles ranging from rock to pop, hip-hop, electronic, world music and French chanson, it’s the official launch of summer fun, at least for those Montrealers who live, breathe and enjoy life primarily en français.
For anglos, it’s as if Les Francos don’t exist.
Seriously, ask yourself — and/ or your anglo friends — when Les Francos take place this year and who’s performing. Heck, ask them if they know what Les Francos are in the first place. (Hint: an annual celebration of French music from around the globe.) Chances are your questions will be met with an indifferent shrug.
Kinda strange for an event that has taken over the downtown core for the past 29 years (this being the 30th edition), and which last year drew more than one million attendees over 10 days. (The jazz fest, in comparison, reeled in more than two million people while Osheaga attracted slightly less than its capacity of 145,000 over three days.)
Kinda strange for an anglo population that prides itself on residing in a thriving bi/multilingual metropolis that is the bridge between Europe and North America. And kinda sad.
Sad that we’re not more curious, that despite all our boasting about Montreal’s enhanced cultural riches, anglo Montrealers prefer to pretend they live in Toronto.
Case in point: the Montreal Gazette used to cover Les Francos extensively. There was a time when we couldn’t get enough Francos, when giving a major splash to the festival’s big free opening concert was a proud display of just how hip and connected we were to the other side of the linguistic divide.
But readers didn’t seem to care. Efforts to engage and enlighten anglos to all the cool music at Les Francos have included features alluding to an entire world of music to discover, and comparing franco acts to their anglo counterparts. (If you like Bob Dylan, you might like …; If you like Radiohead, you might like …)
Let’s just say those pieces never went viral.
So what’s the anglo excuse? It can’t be just that people don’t know the artists performing, because everyone is all too willing to traipse down to the jazz fest site and take in free shows by unknown bands from all corners of the planet on any given night — and those acts aren’t always singing in English.
But somehow when anglos find out something is in French, a switch goes off that says, “Not for me.”
Interestingly, our francophone frères et soeurs don’t have the same affliction. Franco-québécois music fans are surprisingly eager to keep up with what’s going on in the anglo scene, from supporting local talent like Arcade Fire to taking in the intricate lyricism of U.S. rap star Kendrick Lamar or, this Tuesday and Wednesday, back-toback concerts at the Bell Centre by Irish rockers U2.
News flash: that wouldn’t be possible if francos kept to their own the way we anglos do. If they did, U2 and a whole lot of other top-tier talent wouldn’t even pass through Montreal. And francophones don’t just do it with music, but with movies, TV, comedy and more. Mean- while, anglos carry on in wilful ignorance, acting like they don’t speak French and as if they live in a city one-third the size.
C’est quand même quelque chose, as they say.
So here we are at the 30th edition of Les Francos, which runs Friday through June 17. Highlights of the free festivities on the main Bell Stage include shows by pioneering Montreal rap crew Alaclair Ensemble (Friday, 9 p.m.); grizzled rocker Éric Lapointe (Saturday, 9 p.m.); enchanting indie-pop chanteuse Klô Pelgag (Sunday, 9 p.m.); veterans Kevin Parent (Monday, 9 p.m.), Daniel Bélanger (June 12, 9 p.m.) and Marjo (June 13, 9 p.m.); and local hip-hop heroes Dead Obies (June 15, 9 p.m.).
Other hot tips include: Blind Malian duo Amadou & Mariam (June 12, 8 p.m., Loto-Québec Stage); the man they call the French Tom Waits, Arthur H. (June 16, 7 p.m., Club Soda); rising French stars Eddy De Pretto (Sunday, 7:30 p.m., MTelus) and Juliette Armanet (June 14, 7:30 p.m., L’Astral); and Quebec indie auteur Pierre Lapointe (June 15 and 16, 8 p.m., Théâtre Maisonneuve).
But I’m already losing you, aren’t I?
Le sigh.