METZ, A TRIBE CALLED RED, YOUNG GALAXY, WHITEHORSE, COLIN STETSON, METRIC, ZAKI IBRAHIM and PURITY RING at the Carlu, Monday, September 23. Rating: NNN
It was the Polaris Prize gala’s first time at the Carlu, and there were a couple of kinks to work out. First, seated at the top right corner of the balcony, members of the media couldn’t see the presenters (including Sarah McLachlan, Joseph Boyden, George Stroumboulopoulos) who stood for no good reason among the tables instead of actually on the stage. You couldn’t drink up there either. So if you were thirsty or wanted to see, you had to descend to the bar, where you couldn’t hear. A bit frustrating.
But those glitches were made up for by eight stellar performances that made us remember why, despite the lack of an obvious frontrunner (most people were calling METZ or A Tribe Called Red), the Polaris short list was actually damn good. Those two performances, saved for the end, were definite highlights, the former’s blistering guitar making our stomachs leap roller-coaster-style, and the latter’s moving pow wow vocals meshed with dubstep beats accompanied by a hoop dancer. (Godspeed You! Black Emperor, who almost never speak to the media or appear publicly, did not perform. Tegan and Sara couldn’t be there, but Choir! Choir! Choir! filled in for them.)
Hosts Shad and Kathleen Edwards did a good job holding the crowd’s attention over three hours of songs and many, many breaks. Even if they were a little over the top – Edwards’s profanity (there were swear jars for charity) and the pair’s Miley Cyrus and Robin Thicke costumes – the ballsy risks paid off.
Everyone was taken aback, and most were delighted, that veteran Montreal experimental alt-rockers Godspeed You! Black Emperor took home the $30,000 prize (which they’ll use to fund music programs in Quebec prisons) for their album Allelujah! Don’t Bend! Ascend!
Sort of anticlimactic given their no-show, but shock endings are often the best ones. No one can deny the album’s merit, which is what the hoopla is all about after all.
Afterward, Godspeed You! released the following statement:
A FEW WORDS REGARDING THIS POLARIS PRIZE THING
hello kanada.
hello kanadian music-writers.
thanks for the nomination thanks for the prize- it feels nice to be acknowledged by the Troubled Motherland when we so often feel orphaned here. and much respect for all y’all who write about local bands, who blow that horn loudly- because that trumpeting is crucial and necessary and important.
and much respect to the freelancers especially, because freelancing is a hard fucking gig, and almost all of us are freelancers now, right? falling and scrambling and hustling through these difficult times?
so yes, we are grateful, and yes we are humble and we are shy to complain when we’ve been acknowledged thusly- BUT HOLY SHIT AND HOLY COW- we’ve been plowing our field on the margins of weird culture for almost 20 years now, and “this scene is pretty cool but what it really fucking needs is an awards show” is not a thought that’s ever crossed our minds.
3 quick bullet-points that almost anybody could agree on maybe=
-holding a gala during a time of austerity and normalized decline is a weird thing to do.
-organizing a gala just so musicians can compete against each other for a novelty-sized cheque doesn’t serve the cause of righteous music at all.
-asking the toyota motor company to help cover the tab for that gala, during a summer where the melting northern ice caps are live-streaming on the internet, IS FUCKING INSANE, and comes across as tone-deaf to the current horrifying malaise.
these are hard times for everybody. and musicians’ blues are pretty low on the list of things in need of urgent correction BUT AND BUT if the point of this prize and party is acknowledging music-labor performed in the name of something other than quick money, well then maybe the next celebration should happen in a cruddier hall, without the corporate banners and culture overlords. and maybe a party thusly is long overdue- it would be truly nice to enjoy that hang, somewhere sometime where the point wasn’t just lazy money patting itself on the back.
give the money to the kids let ‘em put on their own goddamn parties, give the money to the olds and let them try to write opuses in spite of, but let the muchmusic videostars fight it out in the inconsequential middle, without gov’t. culture-money in their pockets.
us we’re gonna use the money to try to set up a program so that prisoners in quebec have musical instruments if they need them…
amen and amen.
apologies for being such bores,
we love you so much / our country is fucked,
xoxoxox
godspeed you! black emperor
