Jason Montgomery's Blog: August 2007 Archives

The flight out to Montreal on Monday was uneventful. But when I checked in I found that I was given one of the good seats! 12C on an Airbus A320, right behind the Executive First section with lots of room for my freakishly long legs. But I was wondering, there were two chairs in front of my section meaning there were just two TVs. Me plus two other guys were sitting behind them. Will the guy in the middle have to fight us for control of one of the coveted TV sets? Turns out he didn't have to, his TV was folded away into an armrest. The riot was averted, so I sat back and watched Spider-Man 3.

The flight arrived on time at Trudeau airport, but it was later than I thought it would be so I cancelled my plans to eat dinner there and made my way to Via Rail's Dorval station as I was planning on riding the train to downtown Montreal using their AirConnect service. And it was hot. I really don't deal with humidity well, but 20 minutes later I was at CN Gare Centrale.

I had promised myself to try the poutine while I was in Montreal, but as it was starting to get late and I needed to get to the hotel, and as all the other food places in the station were closed, I had some quick French cuisine, hopped on the metro, found the hotel, and crashed.

Tuesday morning, I went to the hotel's breakfast buffet which was mostly the same as the one at the Novotel I was at in Toronto in June. Any hotel chain that has genuine Froot Loops on the menu is ace in my book.

I then headed out to see if I could resolve the personal problem I alluded to earlier, but it was quickly fixed and I then headed out to my first stop, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts.

I read about their exhibition on American Streamlined Design, so I decided to check it out. It was truly neat stuff, seeing all these everyday objects from the 1930s-40s and seeing how they were designed to appear fast and "World of Tomorrow"-esque. Radios, fans, train engines, toys, it was all being made to reflect a glamour that was needed after the Depression.

I then wandered around the museum, seeing parts of their European, Canadian, and decorative collections, but it was the modern stuff I was most interested in. Especially this. I couldn't stop staring at it, like something out of a horror movie.

After a light lunch at the museum cafeteria of a croissant and some Kraft P'Tit Quebec white cheddar, I left and went back on the metro to walk around the Underground City. (And after reading this, I couldn't believe I was just there in that same tunnel just two years ago!) My wanderings took me to Centre Eaton where I milled around for a bit, and then ended up back at Gare Centrale.

Knowing my plans for that night, I thought I should eat dinner real early so I gathered up my courage, went into a restaurant, and did the tourist thing and ordered the poutine and a Pepsi. (It's Quebec, here they drink Pepsi.) I was totally surprised at how good it was. That mix of french fries, gravy, and cheese should not be, but it worked. That would stick to my ribs for the rest of the night (or week) so I went back to the hotel to rest up for the highlight of my trip which would burn off all that culture I absorbed at the museum.

Daft Punk!
Live in Concert!

I was really pumped that I will get to see this show! I love their music, and this was their first North American tour in nine years!

The hotel was just down the street from Centre Bell, so I made my way to the arena and the place was packed. A New York-based indie rock group called The Rapture was the opening act, plus two other French techno artists did DJ sets, but when the lights went down, I thought the place would explode when Daft Punk came out. It was literally standing room only no matter where you were once the music started.

I had great seats, I was in the stands just to the right of the stage so I had a clear view of Daft Punk as they were performing. But I wasn't far from the Wall of Amps so it was loud. DAMN loud. My ears were ringing for hours afterwards. And the bass was so high I could feel it pulse through my chest and loosen my fillings. And I loved it. I decided not to go for floor tickets and say that I stood at (when it's hockey season) centre ice at Centre Bell, but I didn't want to get crushed in the mosh pit by the ravers. I may be crazy to go to a show like this, but I'm not stupid. But both the Gazette and the Post gave rave reviews of their concert the next day.

There were no cameras permitted, so I didn't want to bring Hitomi with me and cause trouble, but as I saw lots of LCD screens light up in the crowd, I knew that I had lots of surrogate photographers and videographers capturing the night for me.

This video is from a show Daft Punk did in Coney Island a few days later, but the mood was the same:

It was an awesome night. I think I permanently lost 0.0001% of my hearing and it was worth it. It was a face-melting, sensory-overloading, one HELL of a show. And Daft Punk announced that a live album for the tour is coming out in November, so I can get it and say I was there.

Wednesday I was off to Toronto so I headed to Gare Centrale and waited for my train, and I was going first class again. A nice, relaxing train ride through the Quebec-Ontario countryside was just what I needed to recover from the concert, so I just sat back and watched it all go by and I psyched myself up for that evening's entertainment: my first Toronto Blue Jays baseball game!

I've never been to a major league game, and the Jays were hosting the Yankees that night at Rogers Centre (nee SkyDome). I've never been there either, and when I got in I was dumbfounded as to how big the stadium was on the inside. I had great seats, not far behind home plate so I had a clear view of everything. I was seated next to an local older couple, so we chatted for a bit during the game. And it was what I paid to see: the Jays slaughtered the Yankees 15-4! And so many foul balls were being hit into my general area I thought I'd catch one. But one foul ball went into the section next to mine, bounced off somebody's head, went in the concessions, and there was a scramble of fans trying to get the ball as I heard it hit against something metal in the back. Lots of fun.

Thursday morning after breakfast at the hotel (I didn't know Wolfgang Puck was now in the coffee business) I went to the Ontario Science Centre. There was an exhibit of Titanic artifacts that were brought up from the shipwreck and were restored and on display.

And it was a pretty harrowing experience. When you enter, you're given a replica White Star Line ticket with the name of one of the Titanic passengers on it. The idea is that as you move through the exhibit, you've assumed the identity of that passenger and at the end you find out if your survived that night or not. There was ship equipment, engine parts, and personal items on display, and you walked through replica corridors and looked into recreated staterooms so you can see the differences in the classes on the ship. And the layout of the rooms and exhibit space got more and more ominous as you knew what was coming.

It really drove home that the Titanic was a real disaster, and while it's all sinking in you enter the last room in the show, and you're hit in the face with crass commercialism as it's the gift shop! They had all kinds of stuff, like necklaces with pieces of coal in them recovered from the wreck. I know that some of the stuff said that it helped support the ongoing research of the ship and the preservation of the artifacts, but STILL.

I then went back to downtown Toronto and cooled my heals at Eaton Centre for a bit, and communed with the other iPod People at the Apple Store. I went back to the hotel, grabbed dinner, and then headed down to the Diesel Playhouse for that night's show: Evil Dead: the Musical!

I saw this one profiled on TV months ago, and completely forgot about it until I was poking around a Toronto tourist site. And I'm glad I went. This off-Broadway musical adaptation of Sam Raimi's trilogy of horror/comedy films was the funniest thing I've seen in a long time. When I got home, I bought the soundtrack.

You know how when you go to SeaWorld and see the killer whale show they say "If you're in the first X rows, you will get wet"? Well, at Evil Dead if you're in the first 3 rows, you're in the Splatter Zone! When the fake blood starts flying in the second act, you could end up a bloody mess! So dress appropriately.

I decided not to sit in the Splatter Zone, but one row safely behind. It was my reasoning that if I ended up "splattered" it could cause trouble. Even though my hotel was just a few blocks away, here I was, an out-of-towner, covered in something that looks like blood, walking alone in downtown Toronto late at night? Not smart. "Don't mind me officer, I'm just in town to kill a guy."

Friday morning was the trip home. The express bus to Pearson was reliable as always, but I couldn't say that for the flight. The airport was beyond busy. I had to wait in a long line to check in my suitcase, and it ended up being a line to get into a much shorter line at the other end of the terminal for the hardly-used Air Canada desks for Montreal flights. And then my plane was an hour late for boarding, because I found out the radar went bust on the original plane so they had to swap in another plane at another gate. It was the next gate over, but that combined with quite a bit of turbulence in the air and me getting a middle seat made the flight not so hot. I watched Shrek the Third and dozed for most of the time.

And that was my 2007 train trip. Where shall the rails take me next?