Osheaga Review: Day 1

Scheduled at the beginning of August, Osheaga had the chance to offer a very beautiful day to the fans yesterday. It is still not as big as many others festivals like Lollapalooza or Coachella, but it is on its way to becoming one of the summer destinations for music lovers.

At the beginning of the day, Hey Ocean!, which I did not know at the time, offered their Costa Rica sound for half an hour at the Green Stage. I wished it lasted longer. Fun., full of energy, best known for their collaboration with Janelle Monae for their single “We Are Young”. I felt a bit nostalgic, the band reminded me of The Beach Boys!

Hey Ocean! Photo courtesy of www.osheaga.com

My friends and I relaxed a bit under the sun on some bus benches while some artists were working on some metro or Snoop Dogg – oh sorry, I mean Snoop Lion – graffitis. After we ate a lunch and drank a Bacardi, we enjoyed seeing the three creative Acadians from Radio Radio. I wished I had some “Dekshoo” to dance in, or to plunge in a “Jacuzzi” to refresh myself! We ran to see the sexy Dum Dum Girls, which unfortunately did not last for a very long time because of some technical problems.

We could not “Walk Away” with the charming Scottish Franz Ferdinand and Alex Kapranos’s moustache, but we also went to see the four French DJs from Birdy Nam Nam. For the electro amateurs, it was the band to see. Dubstep, techno and hard electro resonated at the Piknic Electronik Stage for one hour with the Frenchies.

The beautiful redheaded composer known as Florence Welch from Florence and The Machine hypnotized us with her sulfurous voice and her “Cosmic Love” for her fans. Even if we wanted to see Sigur Ros, we preferred to walk to the Green Stage to see MGMT. I was a bit disappointed to see that Andrew VanWyngarden and Ben Goldwasser did not seem to have fun, even on “Time To Pretend” or “It’s Working”.

Florence and the Machine. Photo courtesy of www.osheaga.com

Even at Justice, Xavier de Rosnay and Gaspard Augé did not cracked out just one smile during their electric set. De Rosnay lit up a cigarette while they were playing “Phantom p.2”. The beating of a million drums resonated while “Civilization”, we literally saw red while “Stress” and we could see the fireworks from La Ronde!

On the other side, there were so many people, we lost some precious show time traveling from stage to stage, and crossing the bridge over the water. The site was much bigger than last year, but do we really need a playground for children? If I would have children, I would never bring them to music festivals. In addition, going back at the metro was so difficult; it took us twenty minutes to cross finally the doors to enter in the metro.

To finish, the atmosphere was cool, the food was good, the people were beautiful to look and we had fun! I hope it is going to be the same thing today and tomorrow!