Sadies, Melvins Get Loud At FME 2010

My final day of FME began early, when I was woken up at 7:30 a.m. and discovered I was having an asthma attack.

Why? Well, it turns out the people in the room next to me were smoking with their door open. A baby was also running up and down the hall, screaming, "Mama! Dada!" over and over again.

I groaned, threw the covers over my head and attempted to stop coughing. I'd stupidly left my puffers in Toronto (which I instantly regretted when the temperature dropped and my lungs had some initial trouble), so after I'd managed to calm my lungs down, I tried to sleep like that, covered head-to-toe, curled up under the sheets. Unfortunately, I was getting way too sweaty and after putting up with the noise and smell for an hour-and-a-half, I finally went and complained.

Then it stopped, I could breathe and I went back to sleep, but I didn't wake up until after noon.

By that point, I'd gotten word that I was to interview the Melvins and Leif Vollebekk at around 4 p.m. I went and did that, discovering the Melvins would also be on my 6 a.m. flight home the next morning. That kind of made the early departure worth it.

Then I went down to Chez Bob to see Damien Robitaille's set. The Franco-Ontarian singer/songwriter is huge in Montreal and is developing a pretty large following throughout the rest of Quebec as well. [Full disclosure: Robitaille is friends with CHARTattack contributor Phil Villeneuve, and I also used to work with his sister.]

Chez Bob was understandably packed for his set, which was the first of two he was to play that weekend. And when Robitaille took the stage and launched into "On Est Né Nu" (We Are Born Naked), the place was kind of going crazy. He's a bit of a heartthrob and he's also hilarious. He had the crowd in stitches throughout his set, and I think it's only a matter of time before he crosses over to the rest of Canada.

After I had some dinner, I headed over to the Petit Theatre to wait for the Melvins. I was intrigued by the festival program's description of Montreal's Trung Hoa, who supposedly mixed stoner rock with doom metal. They played an amazing set, and their bassist was the most energetic of all their members, bounding across the stage and screaming like a true metal warrior. His long, curly locks were dripping sweat by the time the band were done. I think Trung Hoa have got potential to be absolutely huge, but unfortunately there's no music on their MySpace to direct readers to.

The Melvins came on stage shortly thereafter. Singer/guitarist Buzz Osborne was wearing a gigantic mumu and looked incredibly ridiculous with his gigantic hair. Drummers Dale Crover and Coady Willis were sporting shirts that had ape hair tacked to their shoulders. That was appropriate, since they slammed their drums harder than anyone I've ever seen, and at times looked exactly like angry, flailing simians.

They were the highlights of the set. It was absolutely incredible to watch them play in tandem, making absolutely no mistakes whatsoever. I'm normally not a fan of two-drummer acts, since I think it results in complete wankage, and while there were tons of drum solos from Willis and Crover, they were tasteful and fit in perfectly with the band's set.

The crowd didn't seem to know what to make of the band, though. I was fully expecting this to be a violent show with a pit, tons of shoving and crowd surfing, just like I'd seen at Mudhoney about two years ago.

This show was the complete opposite. Everyone in the crowd stood there staring at the band with awed looks on their faces, as if they'd never seen anything like what they were witnessing. Considering this was the Melvins' first time in Rouyn-Noranda, Que., most of the people in the crowd probably hadn't seen anything like it.

They finished with a hilarious a capella version of Merle Haggard And The Stragglers' "Okie From Muskogee" before leaving without an encore. They didn't need one.

I headed across the street to the Agora Des Arts to catch the end of Karkwa's set. One of the festival organizers had told me they were "the biggest band in Quebec right now," and she wasn't kidding. The Agora was absolutely packed, more than any other show it had staged that weekend. Every seat was full, people were standing in the aisles and it was nearly impossible to see the stage.

I stayed for a bit and found the contrast between the jammy material on the band's earlier material and their more folky tunes on this year's Polaris Music Prize short listed Les Chemins De Verre album quite interesting. I was also really impressed with what I saw of their performance: singer/guitarist Louis-Jean Cormier has quite the stage presence.

Eventually the heat inside the Agora (it had been stifling all weekend) and not really being able to see as much as I wanted to got to me, and I left and headed to La Forteresse to see The Sadies.

This was to be the final set I'd see at FME, since I decided the 6 a.m. flight home meant no staying out past 2 a.m. at the latest. Wouldn't you know it, it was the best show I saw the entire weekend.

This was (if I heard Dallas Good correctly) the fourth time The Sadies have played FME, and Forteresse was packed for their set (they played two sets during that weekend).

The Sadies absolutely tore it up. It was the only set all weekend where I actually saw people dancing and heard singing along. The entire audience was shouting along to "Higher Power" about midway through their performance.

Soon after they'd performed about 30 songs from throughout their discography and left the stage, they came back for an encore, which Good announced was going to be a whole 10 more songs! The crowd went absolutely crazy. If the Polaris Music Prize was a performance-based award, The Sadies would win it hands down.

I wandered back to my hotel at 2 a.m. and ended up staying up almost the entire night (save for the one hour of sleep I got). Sure enough, that was a good decision because we had to leave for the airport between 4:30 a.m. and 5.

Overall, I was impressed with how professional and how well organized the festival had been. The only thing I regret is not being able to stay for Sunday night, which had been dubbed "metal night."

Rouyn-Noranda might be tiny in comparison to Toronto, but I really enjoyed myself (despite it being kind of freezing on Saturday night) and hopefully I can return next year.