Tonight - it's 11.30 p.m. and downtown Montpellier is jammin'. There are thousands of people only a few blocks away on the Place, drinking their 4 euro glasses of wine and listening to Sticky Fingers, an old time rock and roll band playing exclusively old American rock - Blue Suede Shoes, Johnny B. Goode - though no one in the group speaks English. The female singer was like Janis Joplin poured into a pair of size zero jeans. They were fun, but it took the crowd a long time to warm up and boogie. At the end there was a big group line-dancing. I flashed back to when I first line-danced, in my mother-in-law's car port in Vernon, B.C. in the mid-eighties. Connie was the leader of a line-dancing troupe of women who wore cowboy hats and boots and did lots of different dances. And here was one of them, in Montpellier on a steamy Friday night, more than 20 years later.
The food vendors were still piling out the plates, including oysters, tandoori chicken, crepes - many people were just arriving as I tired and started to leave. But it was hard to go, because there were also street performers everywhere, including a fabulous jazz combo of seven people, with piano and bass, set up on the edge of the square, with about a hundred people gathered around tapping their feet.
Now, that's a downtown Friday night. Let's go, Toronto. I'm ready for more.
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