By Rik Roe for Curtains Up The Blushing Brides are a constant reminder how the very provoking lyric of “Love is Strong”, is both their motto and their moniker. Having recently had the grand privilege of seeing and hearing them at a packed Club Soda, mere months before their iconic counterparts appear in Montreal, we […]
Music
Soul queen Divine Brown brings “Old Skool Love” to Montreal
By Richard Burnett for Curtains Up! @bugsburnett One of the first things out of my mouth when I first spoke with soul singer Divine Brown when her 2005 hit single Old Skool Love topped the charts was, “Damn if there are two famous black women called Divine Brown.” The other, of course, happens to be […]
FRINGE FESTIVAL 2013
I must admit, I’m behind the eight ball on Montreal’s Fringe Festival. Before Monday’s media call at Les Katacombes bar, I had heard of the Festival, but I didn’t really know what it was all about, having spent most of the past 20 summers or so in the Laurentians. Knowing what I know now, I […]
Scooch over, AC/DC! Hard-rockers Airbourne are new thunder from Down Under
By Richard Burnett for Curtains Up! @bugsburnett True story: I was chasing a bat in my Montreal apartment the very night that Australia’s legendary hard-rocking boogie band Airbourne was headlining Le National back in 2008. I missed that show, but the next time Airbourne came to town – opening for the nastiest, skankiest rock’n’roll sideshow […]
My Way: An Autobiography by Paul Anka with David Dalton (St. Martin’s Press, $34.50)
By Andreas Kessaris for Curtains Up! The year was 1988. I was a young student in my first semester at Dawson College taking a course in documentary film taught by David Grey. I wrote a paper on the NFB film Lonely Boy. The paper gets me a grade of 82%. In 1995 I am […]
Brit punk alt-rock legend Billy Bragg still fighting establishment “Tooth & Nail”
By Richard Burnett for Curtains Up! @bugsburnett British alt-rock musician and left-wing activist Billy Bragg formed the punk rock band Riff Raff in 1977 and was touring London’s pubs and clubs when one day, in the spring of 1978, he joined 100,000 people in the first-ever Rock Against Racism march from Trafalgar Square to East […]
L’ Opéra de Montréal unveils star-studded 2013-2014 season
By Richard Burnett for Curtains Up! @bugsburnett Internationally-acclaimed sopranos Measha Brueggergosman and Galina Shesterneva, Italian baritone Paolo Gavanelli and conductor Paul Nadler are just some of the stars cast in productions of L’ Opéra de Montréal’s 2013-2014 season. The upcoming season will open on Sept 21 with a four-night run of the Opéra de Montréal […]
Pop phenom Mika on new album and tour, his idol Freddie Mercury and the showbiz closet
By Richard Burnett for Curtains Up! @bugsburnett British pop star Mika came out as a gay man in an interview with Instinct magazine last autumn. “If you ask me am I gay, I say yeah. Are these [new] songs about my relationship with a man? I say yeah. And it’s only through my music that […]
Ladies and Gentlemen…The Beatles!
Woke up, fell out of bed Dragged a comb across my head Found my way downstairs and drank a cup And looking up I noticed I was late Found my coat and grabbed my hat Made the bus in seconds flat (1) …then I met my friends and Curtains Up colleagues Sharman, Stuart and Bugs for The […]
The View at Il Motore
By Kris LeBlanc for Curtains Up On Saturday, March 30th, I had the chance to see “The View’ perform live at Il Motore in Montreal. The show started at 9pm with an opening act performed by a local Montreal band “The Right Track.” They really got things going to a great start, their songs were […]


