Well, it’s official. Autumn is at our doors, and we had some frank exposure to it last weekend. The temperatures weren’t as mild as we’d hoped, but that didn’t discourage our invited artists from pulling off an excellent edition of the weekend triple-header. On Saturday, violent winds resulting from the after-effects of Hurricane Earl left us seeing all sorts of colours (which is just a figure of speech, because the skies were otherwise grey as can be). Speaking of colours, we had the right to one meteorological consolation prize: two splendid rainbows, graciously delivered by the bi-polarity of Mother Nature. Right, enough talk of weather... Saturday, Ninja Tune provided us with a line-up bursting at the seams, celebrating their 20^th anniversary with Ghostbeard, Shuttle, Steinski, and Toddla-T. The young British sensation Toddla-T set the decks on fire with a vibrant set mixing up everything from soca to dancehall to dubstep and back. At the same moment, an imposing swarm of mayflies unfurled above our heads, and soon enough they were in our eyes, our mouths, and in our beers! Sunday was Misstress Barbara Day! Always on board for the first Sunday of each September, Misstress dropped in and perpetuated the tradition, and we were all under her spell as she delivered no less than a 4-hour set of musical joy to hypnotized fans. And we were only two-thirds of the way through the weekend!

The marathon continued on Monday, getting started with the gentlemen of Busy Tones, who handed in a humourous set designed to make us smile. And it wasn’t difficult to pull off, as most everyone had a smileyface on by the time they were done. Maybe you noted that a number of the dancers at the front were sporting Ekip Piknic t-shirts or walkie-talkies? As it turns out, we were supporting our colleagues, because Busy Tones is the handiwork of Stéphane Latreille (Piknic’s barman) and Nicolas Cournoyer (our director of operations and a Piknic co-founder). In terms of their performance, the pair struck a bull’s eye on their objectives: make the staff dance like crazy to funky, retro-flavoured melodies, and then hand over the stage to France’s Oxia. At 5pm, the German label Bpitch Control took over the DJ booth, with Kiki, Ellen Allien and Sascha Funke at the helms. That managed to collect a large number of dancers under the Calder, as people braved the bleak backdrop of this year’s Labour Day. And they had good reason to get up and move! The three DJs delivered the goods, balancing bangers and melodic peaks for a deep and euphoric journey. The combination of great music and talented DJs almost made us forget the persistent rain, which didn’t give us a break for the finale of our annual triple-header.

To finish off, we’d like to extend a big thanks to all the artists this past weekend who came out and gave us their best: Ghostbeard, Beat Market, Steinski, Shuttle, Toddla-T, Dorobo, Simon Apex, Nimalan Yoganathan, Christian Pronovost, Hakim Guelmi, Misstress Barbara, Scot t?C., Recepteurz, Busy Tones, Kiki, Sascha Funke, Ellen Allien, Oxia and MMdM.

Next Sunday, get ready for Turbo @ Piknic!

Crédit photos: J-F Garneau