‘Escape’ was the word spelled out in big, block letters in front of the main stage at La Bacchanale’s weekend-long festival. The word refers to the creative premises on which La Bacchanale is built – that within our own familiar city of Montreal, we can project fantasy and inspiration onto our surroundings, create new worlds and build communities through which we escape the confines of our everyday comfort zone. Paradoxically, La Bacchanale also creates a different comfort zone of sorts. Their events are a safe, expressive and communal refuge for electronic music lovers amassing from disparate corners of the city, drawing on the lure of the electronic beat as the basis for the bonanza.
The daytime segment of the festival stretched along the St. Lawrence River by Old Port’s Clock Tower. As cruise ships glided by, festival attendees would turn to the river and wave, only to see their gestures mirrored by the dancing passengers. Two stages were set up at opposite ends of the festival grounds, mirroring their intrinsic opposing characters. The main stage set the scene for steely techno and pulsing minimalist music, foregrounded by wood cut-outs of brightly painted mountains.
The second stage was adorned in colourful flowers mounted on wooden pallets, conveying a hippie-like aesthetic, with the Clock Tower looming in the background. Here, Britain-based DJ Moomin played a light and peppy set inflected by elements of disco, ending with Fleetwood Mac’s Sunshine When it Rains as a cheeky nod to the weather – at the moment, spitting rain. The venue wasn’t exclusively a dancefloor, however. There were areas to relax and collapse into comfy, air-filled seats, allowing festival goers to catch a break in between dancing, satisfying various moods and energy levels.
As the day gave way to darkened, rain-ridden skies, the vibe of the festival shifted and La Bacchanale slinked into its familiar temporal terrain of the night. Saturday evening saw people migrate into Hangar 16 as rain poured unforgivably on the festival grounds. The expansive warehouse space conveyed a decisively different atmosphere than that of the airy outdoors: with its high ceilings and industrial aesthetic, it echoed back to the early ages of techno when the industrial disposition was spun in similarly mechanized settings. Hangar 16, however, was no worn-down wreck, but the site of an immaculate light and projection show. By the bar, La Bacchanale’s famous elephant logo flashed across the wall in purple, while meticulously drawn shapes and patterns danced around the DJ booth, poised above a battalion of booming speakers facing the crowd.
The warehouse space boomed with activity as light spinners and acrobats inspired amusement, adding on to the festivities. As people piled into the warehouse, they were handed anonymizing white masks, which the festivalgoers wore with enthusiasm. This was a well thought-out artistic act, greatly contributing to the overall idea of ‘escape’ by stripping individuals free of their everyday identities and emphasizing the role the music had to play in unifying the crowd. Detroit-based Delano Smith played a hardy techno set that kept the energy levels on a steady high among the crowd, keeping his audience hooked to each shift and tease buried in his skillful transitions.
La Bacchanale’s crowd displayed great endurance on Saturday’s festival – despite the punishing weather, people were present and moving, attesting to the passion and tenacity of the electronic music fans that constitute the event collective’s sizable fan base. This was further affirmed with Sunday’s strong turnout – the festival grounds were flooded in a decisively delightful buzz. La Bacchanale lived up to its deeply respected reputation, masterfully implementing mood and delighting whole dancefloors by the DJ talent presented.
The organizers invested a great deal of work and the thoughtfulness showed: the physical, aesthetic and atmospheric aspects complemented each other perfectly. Slipping off our masks as we left the venue, we reluctantly left our musical escape and slipped back into Montreal, moved by the power of electronic music to mobilize mood, atmosphere and the dancing masses.
By Michelle Huang and Katrya Bolger
