Oh may I have more Paprika please!

Wednesday the 5th of November. It's cold, one of the first nights where I felt the cold biting my bones and frail limbs. Antoine, my good old drunken friend and I form a duo à la Jack Kerouac and Neal Cassidy, we love to have a good time filled to the brim with the finest of poisons, alcool. Tonight, we wanted to go out and simply have a reasonable amount of beers. No scuffing nor pushing nor shouting or rambling. We would be good boys, civilized. As we walked around Saint-Laurent, hoping we could go see Jazz at Barbossa, we are greated with a closed venue. God Fucking Damnit screams Antoine, I retort, Oh let's keep calm, we haven't even drinked yet, no need to get all riled up. Let's go grab a bite at Slice and Soda and then we can head towards l'Escogriffe and le Quai des Brumes to see what's up. Inside the pizza shop, the man tell's us he's closing so he deals us a deal and we are outted with two jumbo slices for 7$! Antoine tells me, "Wow it really is a great place over there." ''Yeah right? They are so fucking logical and simply nice'' I retort. We savour our slices and buy some alcool, drink, laugh smoke, walk and talk. Minutes later, the cold is relentless, but we are finally arrived at destination. Once again, we go to another pizza place, Dany's Pizza, buy a slice, eat it, argue about which was better and finally, we get to l'Escogriffe. Over there, two girls are outside smoking or laughing I can't remember, we ask them if the show is worth the bucks, the answer is a mid-ish yes filled with giggles. Nonetheless we are convinced we should go in, but as we are about to head inside, everyone goes out. So we smoke and drink and laugh with the concert goers. A funny folk gets our attention and we start speaking, learning he goes more to hardcore shows, but recently he finds the scene very poor of behaviors and social acceptance is getting rare. Thus he prefers more rock and indie and other shows. He's out to discover, new music, new people, new thrills. Tonight, he informs us that Au Secours have just played, and that next on is the great Paprika. So sadly, I missed Au Secours, but I shall not miss Paprika as many people around tell us the same, they are fucking good. I cross paths with a friend, Juliette, we giggle, we laugh, she's at Quai des Brumes and so we part ways as we are both heading inside our respectful venues to watch the last acts.

Photo of the band live by Yanick Macdonald

 Inside, the band has just hoped on. On vocals we have Océane, on harmonica and keys at the far left, when facing the stage, Jules who also helped out with back vocals, Hisham was the magician who played the saxophone pipping notes and subtilities with incredible timing along the songs, Dahli was on bass keeping the whole business running smooth and on time along the dummer who's name is Justin. Lastly, we had Jean-Philippe on lead guitar who could exercices solo's closely relying on Thomas who played rythm guitar. For a band who's only been playing together for 10 months, they must be giants on their on, but truly, it is together, bonded by the rythm and emotion, that Paprika shine best. Through the night, they had me wailing my feets back and forth, my body convulsing up and down and my brain was ecclectic as their sound brought the whole place in a trance, with their mix of psychedelic grateful dead rockish licks, jazzy tones and smooth voices just floating above their ensemble. They've got a rockish, at time progish rock sounding yet jazz soul funk vibe to it, for those who go to Growve at Turbo Haus on Wednesday's it had some resemblances during certain numbers. It's dynamic, energetic and yet spacefully soothing. The songs unfurled, beers I drank, moments of loud cheering echoed and envelopped the crowd. I must say, one great thing of the band, is who balanced and tight their sound is, no instrument is too loud, everyone has their turn to shine and when the singer sings, we can clearly hear the lyrics to every song. Paprika was a hell of a great fucking discovery, they've got all kinds of songs, they definitely know how to rock and how to roll. Now, for the latter times to come, Paprika are brewing material in the studio which should be coming out sooner or later. For their next live appearance no dates are announced but fellow readers, rest assured, they surely will be playing soon again. I truly hope they can grasp the opportunities that'll flow to em' because they have talent, the seem to be determined and they are are young, the world is theirs to conquer. Thank you to all fellow readers and have a great day, see you at a next show.