Music

10 Great Things About Attending a Festival in a Northern Quebec Town You've Never Heard Of

by Sam Sutherland

You might not have heard of Festival de musique émergente, which just happened during the Labour Day long weekend for the ninth year in a row. You might not have heard of the small mining town it takes place in, Rouyn-Noranda. A nine hour drive straight north from Toronto or Montreal, it’s an unlikely host for a four day music festival featuring serious names like Akron/Family, Elliott Brood, and Polaris short-listers Galaxie. But once you arrive in the National Copper Capital, two massive smokestacks looming over the working class Quebec town, it’s clear that FME, while unlike almost every festival in Canada, is a wonderful and unique place to spend your last weekend of the summer.

It’s a festival small enough to find you trapped in the lobby of a hotel with Elliott Brood in the middle of a torrential downpour, crafting paper boats to pass the time, or leave you talking about hunting lodges and tattoos with Malajube half an hour after your interview is over. But it’s big enough to have secret shows, 4 a.m. electro dance parties, and metal bands demanding the Wall of Death. It is a unique cultural snowflake in the middle of nowhere, and these are the ten best things about getting your ass to Rouyn-Noranda.

10. The secret shows happen next to huge mining / smelting operations and big, old trains.

Patrick Watson showed up to film the first in a series of webisodes promoting his new record, Adventures in Your Own Backyard. In Toronto, this would have happened in some normal record store. The mine is like the Amoeba Music of Rouyn-Noranda

9. The other secret shows happen in the only late-night poutine / pizza joint in the entire city

Photo courtesy of Cyclopes

Even though everyone seems to agree that the poutine at Chez Morasse is truly awful (quote: “The gravy tastes like shoe gravy”), it’s the only 24 hour eatery in town, which makes it outrageously loud and fun around 2am every night. Our first night attempting to satisfy our late, greasy needs also led to a chance encounter with Piano Chat, who blew the restaurants power and ended up belting it out sans-electricity into the wee hours.

8. There are about seventy billion genres represented throughout the weekend

This is us talking Les Ékorchés, a electric cello and acoustic guitar-based sludge metal band featuring former members of B.A.R.F. and Ghoulunatics. That night, they played an insane show with Cryptopsy, while a hip-hop show featuring Manu Militari raged inside an old movie theatre across town, and a bunch of people sat really quietly in a church to listen to Marie-Jo Therio. Sure, we expect a lot of disparate artists from major festivals like NXNE and Pop Montreal, but when you’ve only got 60 bands in a small Quebec town, it can be more difficult to pull off, especially in the seamless way FME does.

7. Bands, journos, attendees, and organizers all bond through daily activities, like camp, but with mountains of free beer and wine

At most festivals, when you register, you might have a chance to grab a free magazine, some pins, and a tote bag. At FME, you leave your phone number and the locals take you fishing or go karting or to their hunting lodge (presumably to hunt, but probably just to drink in the woods). No, seriously.

6. One of the main venues is a gorgeous old church

Photo courtesy of Cyclopes

It’s big, has great sound, and feels appropriately religious and Québécois. We had the good fortune to watch Miracle Fortress’ too-good-for-indie-rock light show here, along with a late-night set from Elliott Brood and hippie jam seshes from Akron/Family.

5. Bands say stuff they shouldn’t

This is Duchess Says, telling us that the last time they played FME, they took a bunch of mushrooms and went out on to Lac Flavrian in paddle boats. That’s because…

4. All the bands stay at a children’s campground together

Twenty minutes from downtown Rouyn-Noranda, Centre du Plein Air du Lac Flavrian plays host to all the band’s playing during FME. Initially a cost-cutting measure designed to be a creative solution to a lack of funds for hotel rooms, the atmosphere of the campground is now one of the weird, main attractions for bands coming to the festival. There’s fires by the lake, paddle boats in the lake, and another endless supply for free beer and wine (lakeside) to keep you warm as the summer cools off. Yes, hospital beds are a little weird to sleep in, but that’s just a better story to tell when you get home (and the basketball nets are wicked short, which is cool).

3. Music is happening all the goddamn time

Photo courtesy of Cyclopes

Elliott Brood closed out the second night of the festival around 3 a.m. This was probably the earliest evening of the entire weekend. The next night, Plaster’s set began at 4 a.m. And at 9 a.m every morning, local folk troupes take to an outdoor stage in the centre of downtown to kick things off. We never saw this, but we heard it. It must have been nice.

2. Akron/Family, everywhere, all the time

Following their ear splitting set on Friday night, the band seemed to pop up around every corner, most notably at this backyard acoustic show that was just delightful.

1. The headquarters is the adorable cottage-like building that always has a toddler playing piano, seriously

When your festival experience begins and ends in an old, rickety building full of music (bands practice in the basement all festival) and great food (we walked in to rabbit pâté and fresh fruit), you can’t help but feel whimsical about everything. At FME, there is no distinction between the audience, the bands, and the media, and this building is where everything and everyone comes together to steal beers and eat rabbit and talk about the previous evening’s bad poutine.