Frere Jacques

So there I was... a "karaoke" bar in the Old Port part of Montreal. My friend Lisa invited me out with her sister and her sister's boyfriend and a couple other people from "the department" (the Psychology department that is, but I like the elitism implied by there being only one department, so that's the terminology I'll use.) Anyway, the place was described to me as a French song karaoke bar that was supposed to be a lot of fun.

Apparently we weren't the only people who'd heard about the place, because when we got there, there was a considerable line outside, full of completely contented Canadians queuing quite politely. 6$ cover charge, but that included a speed entry (aka no ID required), and an invisible hand marking (no black X's in sight).

So I get in there and the guy on stage is just killing. Everyone in the place is singing along and he's even got a guitar with him that he's playing and everyone in the bar's clapping and really into it. I was really impressed and wondered what the next people would be like. Not too impressed to remember my thirst after walking several blocks in heels (Ok, the heels ended up being overkill, but after my trip up with the ladies in which we were turned away for wearing flip-flops I wasn't going to take chances.) So, being the follower that I am, I waited as everyone else got drinks to see what everyone else was drinking. And let's just say I was both proud and embarrassed to be an American, since everyone in the group was drinking Coors Lite. In their defense, it was the only light beer offered at the stand we were at, but still.

Ok, so we get ourselves a little space carved out on the dance floor and I realize the same dude is still going, with some other song! As it turns out, he played for about a half hour with everyone singing along. Oh, and he didn't have a karaoke machine telling him lyrics either, nor did the crowd.

And then this other group gets up and plays, they've got guitars too, and a trombone and a trumpet too! So I'm concluding pretty quickly that these aren't random people from the audience singing. And this group was really amazing too! They even threw in a couple songs for the Anglos... that didn't go over nearly as well with most of the crowd, but we were happy for the shout out! And after about an hour of that band, the original guy gets back up there. It was just shocking to see these people all know the lyrics to so many songs - and not just rock songs, I'm pretty sure that many of the songs were more like French folk songs jazzed up. I can't imagine getting that kind of crowd response to "The Farmer in the Dell" in the US! And the people there were definitely hipsters, they just happen not to be too cool for everything like our hipsters.

Bonus tidbit also under the title of Frere Jacques: There's a mattress store called Dormez-vous?
Which just translates into "Are you sleeping?" But I love that it seems so familiar!