Photo courtesy of the Montreal International Jazz Festival
Maybe there’s a future in bringing more tribute bands to the Montreal International Jazz Festival.
Porn Flakes (by the way, there might be groups out there who have come up with worse names for their band, but none come immediately to mind) were here strictly to cover the Rolling Stones in some free outdoor shows. With guest vocalist and Stones fanatic Sébastien Plante, the group concocted an ambitious three-set run through the catalogue: one covering the entire Exile on Main St. album from 1972, another featuring hits that preceded it, and another consisting of post-Exile favourites.
Luckily, I happened to catch the early Sunday evening set made up of the 60s material, which is where I believe all the best stuff is.
Hitting the Loto-Quebec stage and opening with the Stones’ Chuck Berryfied cover of (Get Your Kicks On) Route 66, the Flakes rocked as convincingly as any Stones tribute band. At times, they sounded at least as good as their idols did at the Bell Centre a month ago – and for $640 less. To be honest, I would take the Flakes’ versions of Get Off of My Cloud, Gimme Shelter (with impressive vocal work from guest Lulu Hughes) and Paint It, Black over the ones I heard from the self-proclaimed world’s greatest rock n’ roll band in June.
Plante, nothing if not highly enthusiastic, threw himself into the faux Mick Jagger role with everything he had. The Respectables’ lead singer has a voice that is less controlled and mannered than Jagger, with a subtle rasp that works well for the material. The band responded to Plante’s delivery with committed sloppiness.
As the 13-song set progressed, you could feel the audience get more and more excited. By the time they were, inevitably, ooo-oooing their way through Sympathy For the Devil, they were eating it all up, almost as if they were seeing the real thing.
An incongruously-placed Star Star turned up after Time Is On My Side, but no one seemed to care. The Flakes, with Plante, found that hard work pays off.
