la sala rossa

my favourite thing about montreal so far? randomness.

on friday, we were trying to figure out what we could do that was a- cheap and b- fun. john was his industrious self and found something for us to do- 3 unknown bands playing for 7$ cover. we figured why not? for 7$, if the gig sucked we could just leave. we called what few friends we have in montreal, then made our way to la sala rossa.

la sala rossa is interesting. (in the "mom" sense of the word). it was built (and i quote) by the "left-winged Jewish community of montreal in 1932". the centro social espanol has occupied the building for the past 30 years, and is a cultural centre for spaniards in montreal. the ground floor houses a nifty tapas bar that i would definitely go to (we didn't eat there, but our friends did. they seemed happy). up the stairs, you enter the sala rossa itself.

the hall is your classic elementary school gym. old hardwood floors, stage flush with the back walls, thick red velvet curtains hiding the stage, relatively poor sound quality. however, unlike my elementary school gym, there we a variety of stuffed (and by stuffed, i mean taxidermy stuffed, not plush-toy stuffed) birds (owls and geese) and a full sized deer. yes, that's what i said.

as the night got on it's way, we were slowly but surely engulfed by hipsters. hipsters to the left. hipsters to the right. if you don't know what a hipster is, let me enlighten you as best i can. picture someone who pretends they're not trying to be cool, but tries harder then most. then add shoes (either Cons or ugly brogues), slim fit jeans (on boys) or flower print "dresses" (on girls), a 1970's ski-style wooly sweater/sweater vest (ugh), thick glasses they probably don't even need, "messy hair" that clearly was expertly styled and possibly a tweed or cord jacket thrown over it all, and you'll have one. add to that some dancing to i-don't-know-which-beat and you solidify the hipster genre.

the first band played on the main floor, no stage. it was a bit more punk then we'd expected. i could see nothing as the crowd sort of rushed the area and created a rather large human-screen. i don't feel like i missed much. the 2nd band took to the stage (velvet curtains drawn, of course) but was rather overwhelmed by green lights and a smoke machine. so much so that i could only just make out his ridiculous hair. the 3rd band (headliner, if you will) was actually quite good but the set only lasted about 30 mins, which was rather unfortunate.

when the last band finished, the hipsters quickly fled the sala rossa for greener pastures (namely, the bar across the street we decided to avoid), whilst we made our way to a quieter place to have a drink and laugh about the ridiculous night we'd just had.

only one of many, i'm sure.
xo