Friday on My Mind is a highly subjective, curated rundown of five of the cooler things happening in Montreal during the weekend.
John Legend
Friday at Place Bell
When asked for the highlight of his current tour celebrating the 20th anniversary of his breakthrough debut album Get Lifted, John Legend doesn’t hesitate a second.
“For sure, Lauryn Hill was the most full circle (moment) for me,” Legend said in a recent phone interview. “I tell the story in the show about playing on her album and that being my first big break in the industry. And it’s rare that you get her to come out and guest on any stage. So it was extremely special to have her.”
While he was still a student at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, he met Hill and she asked him to play piano on her song Everything Is Everything, from her classic album The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill. That’s the song they played together at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn last week.
Legend, 46, plays the entirety of Get Lifted in the new show. He admits it’s an unusual experience to be reinterpreting all these songs that he wrote when he was in his 20s.
“It’s so fun, honestly. I love going back to it,” he said. “The music still feels really good, even though I’m in a different place now mentally and just in life. The music still sounds so good. The time has kind of flown by, 20 years, and I still feel really connected to the music.”
But is it strange singing those lyrics he wrote more than two decades back?
“I know I’m not in the same place as I was then in life, but I still feel connected to the songs,” said Legend. “I still wrote them. They still came from my authentic self.”
In recent years, Legend has been as well known for his work as a coach on the hit music competition show The Voice as for anything else he does. He said he loves the gig.
“It’s such a fun show and I work with a lot of wonderful artists and they really inspire me,” said Legend. “I feel that I learn a lot from doing it. So much of my job as a coach is to put on great performances with the artists and help them to find out how to be their best selves as performers. So it really is about the music for me. That’s what makes it so fun.”
Tickets: evenko.ca
Les Cowboys Fringants
In various cinemas all weekend
It’s hard to imagine any other Quebec artist not named Céline Dion releasing a concert film in theatres. But Les Cowboys Fringants are, of course, like no other artists de chez nous — they are one of the most influential bands ever ici.
The film was shot at Quebec City’s Centre Vidéotron in January 2023 during their Les Antipodes tour, which broke box-office records across the province. It features all their major hits. It’s a chance to once more relive the intensity of this folk-flavoured rock group live and savour the charismatic stage presence of the late great Karl Tremblay, the band’s frontman, who died from prostate cancer in November 2023.
Tickets: cineplex.com
Alicia Moffet
Friday at the Beanfield Theatre
Quebec pop singer Alicia Moffet returned this year with a new album, No, I’m Not Crying, her first collaboration with the label/production company Cult Nation, the same outfit behind Charlotte Cardin. It’s a more ambitious, more sophisticated record and it’ll be interesting to hear how it translates on stage.
Tickets: evenko.ca
Wednesday
Friday at Club Soda
Wednesday is one of the hottest indie-rock bands around, mixing crunching sledgehammer guitar with singer Karly Hartzman’s melodic vocals and pop sensibility. How hot? The promoter says the show is “super sold out,” so I’m just including it here to give fans without tickets a big dose of FOMO.
Comedy Night
Friday at the Royal Montreal Regiment in Westmount, 4625 Ste-Catherine St. W.
This comedy show is a benefit for the Montreal Fluency Centre, a non-profit organization helping children with communication and learning differences. The show features Gino Durante, Ted Bird, Heidi Foss and Neil Janna.
Tickets: zeffy.com/ticketing/comedy-night-14
Related
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‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source ca.news.yahoo.com ’
