063006 Gomez, Montreal, QC

On June 30th*, 2006 m’lady and I drove to Montreal to catch a taste of their annual Festival International de Jazz.  I first started going to Montreal’s jazzfest pretty much by accident back in the mid-’80’s and though I only attended the festival sporadically I swore by it.  Especially in the days before I started regularly attending Ottawa’s own relatively-small but surprisingly-mighty summer jazz festival.  And these were still those days, as my first of a dozen consecutive Ottawa jazz festivals would begin the following summer.

We had tickets to see spiritual saxophone demigod Pharaoh Sanders at the Spectrum that night, but a good friend with a change of plans had laid a whole other pair of tickets on us for a band called Gomez who were playing at the very same venue earlier that evening.  So we left Ottawa early.

To be honest we probably would have driven to Montreal early regardless.  One of my favourite parts of the Festival de Jazz is wandering amongst the crowded mezzanine of the Place des Arts taking in the multitude of free shows that alternate between any number of outdoor stages all day long.  Heck, there was a time when that’s all I would do; I attended Montreal jazzfest for several years before finally buying a ticket for one of the indoor shows.

So I’m confident that m’lady and I departed Ottawa with as much afternoon ahead of us as possible, and I’m equally confident that once we arrived we took in any number of free shows preceding Gomez’s 6pm start time, but I remember none of these events in particular.  Rather, any residuals I might have of finding a free place to park on one of the nearby side-streets lined with classic Montreal brownstones or sitting on the edge of a concrete planter listening to classic Montreal cerebral atmosphere-jazz while the smell of warm bagels, steamed hot dogs, and stale beer wafted through the air are just so many shards of memory in the grand fresco that my mind holds of Montreal’s jazz festival.  

And while I can recall no specific memories of the afternoon it doesn’t lessen the importance of my time there.  For just like the Jewel Net of Indra**, if a single piece in my mind’s eye were to be omitted the entire work would be altered.  That is; if even one of my subconscious memories were missing then the full picture I have of the festival as a whole would not be as it is today.  And today the full picture I have of the festival is pretty darn great.  So there’s that.

I suppose this is a good segue into admitting that I recall nothing of the Gomez*** show whatsoever.  But again, my experience there definitely plays into my overall mental opinion of the Spectrum, a venue I’ve attended only a small handful of times and one I remember fondly.  And then there is the entire historical spreadsheet of concert experiences that make up the psychological house of cards I’ve been building, which would undoubtedly look at least somewhat different were this show not among them.

So thanks for the tickets Jay, it was part of what’s been working out to be a pretty great life!

*Of course June 30th could also be known as Canada Day Eve but also of course: it isn’t.  Most of the world naturally refers to December 24th as Christmas Eve and December 31st as New Year’s Eve but it seems that that’s where Eve ends.  There is no Hallowe’en Eve or Valentine’s Eve or April Fool’s Eve (though once a year I may try to convince you that there is).  I suppose it’s because we don’t celebrate those days, while we do look at the day preceding Christmas or New Years to be a holiday.  Or maybe we do that because those days have special names.  It’s a chicken or the eve sorta thing.  

In that regard I suppose we could refer to Mardi Gras is Lent Eve, or maybe even Good Friday as Easter Double-Eve but we don’t because those days already have good catchy names of their own (though for the record I’ve always thought that “Good Friday” was a paradoxically optimistic name for the anniversary of the murder of Jesus).  Adam had an Eve but she wasn’t called Adam’s Eve, probably because Eve also had an Adam and Eve’s Adam just sounds silly.  Plus there was nobody around to call her that anyway.  Everyone would’ve just called her “mom”.

But to re-tangent: In an effort to extend everyone’s personal celebration of annum I believe I will begin lobbying for the observation of Birthday Eve’s.  I’ll start on the next December 28th.

**The Buddhists sometimes analogize the interconnectedness of all things with the Jewel Net of Indra, a conceptual fishing net that stretches infinitely in all directions.  At each intersection of the net sits a mirror-like jewel, and each jewel reflects the entire net.  So not only does every individual jewel contain its own unique view of the entirety of the Jewel Net, should any single jewel be removed or altered in any way the change would be reflected in every other jewel.  To look at one jewel is to see all jewels; to alter one jewel is to alter all jewels.  And just as it is with the Jewel Net of Indra, so it is with us.

***I can’t really blame me for not remembering the show.  I hadn’t heard of Gomez before and I’ve not heard of them since.  I just looked them up and gave them a listen.  They are a British indie group with enough Radiohead and My Morning Jacket leanings to overwhelm the slight harkening to Pearl Jam and keep my aesthetics at bay.  

Which is a wordy way of saying: I don’t really care for them very much.