And now, the devil people of Quebec
Who knew Quebec was populated by tattooed fiddle-playing biker gangs?
Weirdest damn Olympic ceremony shtick I’ve ever seen.
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UPDATE: Couple of things.
First: interesting choice for an Olympic song. I mean, yes, Leonard Cohen is a great songwriter. “Hallelujah” is a great song. And god knows, k.d. lang sang the shit out of it. But still, I’m going…what? Really? For the Olympics?
Also: the Olympic Hymn should not be sung by opera singers. Actually, the Olympic Hymn should probably not be sung, period.
23 Responses to “And now, the devil people of Quebec”
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Sheryl Robinson says:
I thought the punk-fiddlers and celtic-punk tap dancers were charming. But then, I’ve been to Quebec, and it sort of fits.
I thought the Cohen song was odd, too. Given the weather, Famous Blue Raincoat might have worked better.
February 13th, 2010 at 1:20 am EST -
Keri says:
Thought it was really strange that they had Celtic Canadian music to represent Quebec. Huh? The Celtic Canadians (mostly of Scottish and Irish ancestry) are dominant in New Brunwick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island. That was a Lorena Mckennitt song that was playing while the freaky fiddler guy was in the canoe. (What, could they not get any French Canadians singers- Celine Dion, etc…?) I did think the First Nation segments and the Celtic Canadian music segments were enjoyable, but the other segments were deadly dull and I actually dozed off during last cultural segment representing the urban western part of Canada- waking up just as the opera singer sang the Olympic hymn.
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Violet Socks says:
I enjoyed the ceremony. I always do, really. It was nicely done, and the light/projection effects were excellent (even breathtaking at times). The Devil People of Quebec segment was bizarre, and the Cohen song was bizarre, and the Olympic Hymn was a mistake, and Bryan Adams looked ridiculous, and Nelly Furtado looked even more ridiculous, and the torch malfunction was regrettable — but other than that, a very nice show. It was more typical for the Olympics. Not like the unfuckingbelievably fantastic thing in Beijing, of course, but nothing will ever match that.
I love Canada. It’s such a sweet country. And I think that sweetness came through in the ceremony. I actually totally dug the slam poet. Brought tears to my eyes, what he said. And I loved the First Nations participating.
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Violet Socks says:
Sheryl, have you actually observed punk fiddlers in Quebec? Like, if I went up there and hung out at a bar, would I encounter tattooed people in leather with pink mohawks wearing longjohns and playing the fiddle?
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Sheryl Robinson says:
I think so, yes.
My theory on the devil fiddling in the floating canoe: he’s the ghost of Pierre Trudeau.
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monchichipox says:
In my girlish days when I was looking the world over and enjoying good things I lived in Northern Quebec for about a year and a half. Most beautiful place you’ll ever want to see. La Tadoussac. Old French for nipple. I kind of liked that.
Les Quebecoises, or the pure laine anyway(my mother’s people) enjoy laughing, smoking cigarettes, really good pot, eating, drinking, and sex. In no particular order, but if I had to give it an order the cigarette smoking would probably come in first. Don’t believe what the RDQ(le reste du Canada) might tell you they love visitors. Believe it or not especially if you’re American.
They do indeed have two competing bike gangs. One in Montreal and one in QC. I’m not sure what role they played in the opening ceremonies as I didn’t see the show. I find it odd as the people of Quebec are highly ashamed of these gangs and see it as a national embarrassment. They find no humor in it They take pride in being what they consider a near violent free people.
I’ll have to go to you tube see if I can find a video. It’s really odd if it was an official participation. I’m hoping it wasn’t as the gangs have a horrible history of violence. An especially horrible record of violence against women.
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Violet Socks says:
I feel compelled to add, though, that I certainly enjoyed the Cohen song. Quite a bit, in fact: I thought lang’s performance of it was just stunning. Thrilling. But it was a strange, strange song for the Olympics.
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Violet Socks says:
Monchichipox, I called them biker gangs because of how they were dressed. Black leather vests, no shirts, tattoos, metal stuff, chains, mohawks…and also flannel and longjohns. It was quite something.
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Sheryl Robinson says:
Well, maybe not exactly Quebec, but they do kinda look like some of my relatives from Madawaska.
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Adrienne in CA says:
Torch malfunction? Bummer. OK, setting the DVR for the late night replay.
*****A -
Briar says:
You know, if they wanted Manchester type weather, they could have come to Manchester. Which is where they should be in 2012. Fed up with London hogging it all.
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RKMK says:
The Celtic Canadians (mostly of Scottish and Irish ancestry) are dominant in New Brunwick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island.
Not to argue the predominance of the Celts out east, but must we consult our Canadian Heritage Moments? Irish orphans in Quebec. In university, my three friends from Quebec were of the name O’Bree, McGee, and O’Donnell.
(Not to mention, the majority of non-Toronto Ontario has vast swaths of Scots-Irish heritage, as does the rest of the country. Our dominion is part of the Commonwealth, after all. British culture has a far reach here. My hometown, for example, hosts pipeband parades down main street every Saturday night in the summer, and has for nearly 100 years.)
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RKMK says:
(Also, a quick glance at a map shows Quebec happens to be, y’know, right next door to those Atlantic provinces. Cultural bleedover is bound to happen across provincial lines. See: Ontario’s embrace of the delicacy known as “poutine.”)
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RKMK says:
(Also, also, don’t forget to mention Newfoundland, Celtic a province as they come. ;))
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monchichipox says:
The influence has also had a huge influx in recent years. Especially from Newfoundland. The government shut down most of the fiheries and a huge percentage of Newfoundland young were put on what they call the pogie. A much broader type of unemployment. It included money to retrain into doing something else. So a lot of the young hightailed it to Montreal and PQ to go to university and well never looked back.
Quebec has a very interesting history. You should google la revolution trangquille and look how the province was changed in the 1960s. Most notably from the funds brought in from Hydro Quebec and ending the Catholic churches control of the education system. And also establishing a national bank to manage all of Quebecs money and investments. They named all of this with the political philosophy called maîtres chez nous. Masters of our own house. They even went so far as to establish a kind of provincial department of state.
I am surprised though that they did use Celtic music to represent Quebec. Quebec has a thriving music industry due to regulations on the percentage of home grown music, in french, that must be played on the radio and they give out huge subsidies to develop local television and music.Though a lot of people don’t like the language laws they’ve used to do it Quebec has done a great job of preserving their culture.
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SweetSue says:
Well, the fiddling makes sense because the Cajuns love it and must have learned it from their Arcadian ancestors.
Do I have my Hiawatha history right?
All in all, the opening ceremony was well done. I would not have known that there was a malfunction except for the magpie chattering of Lauer and Costas. -
madamab says:
I’m softly weeping here because you don’t like opera singers, Violet.
;-)
Kidding! Kidding!
I am surprised that the theme was sung at all (odd decision), but can you imagine a pop singer doing it? The bombast it requires can only be supplied by a well-trained operatic voice.
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Jodie says:
I, too, loved the opera singer. Her voice was incredible!
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Valhalla says:
The tattooed fiddle-playing biker gangs segment was indeed weird, but they looked like they were genuinely enjoying themselves. I like watching the opening ceremonies because everyone’s so thrilled to be there and having such a good time. With all the other crap going on in the world it’s nice to see people coming together even if just for one night.
There’s probably some really interesting backstory to the performers, but Costas and Lauer are so busy blabbing about whatever comes into their heads, U.S. viewers didn’t get to hear it.
One funny moment early in the show — Al Michaels disses Canada and Tom Brokaw backsnarks:
Michaels: You know what struck me in that piece among all of the items, there are more people in CALIFORNIA than there are in ALL of Canada.
Brokaw: Well, and Canada has a stronger and more sound economy at this point as well, that’s a distinction too.
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RKMK says:
Speaking of devil-people, I can’t believe they’re rioting in downtown Van. RIOTING. Fellow Canadians, what the effing eff?
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ErikZ says:
Now I”m all curious, but I can’t find the video online anywhere!
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Crowfoot says:
*delurks*
Re the Celtic music to indicate Quebec: one of the six remaining Celtic tribes comes from northern France (the Bretons), and traditional Metis* music is largely Celtic sounding to the ear, so probably a lot of northern French immigrated to Lower Canada? One doesn’t need to be crapped on by England to be Celtic ;-)
Also the devil in the canoe is an old Quebec ghost story where a group of courier de bois* make a deal with the devil to fly their canoe back home. At one point someone gets scared (I think) and invokes god, thus sending the canoe crashing to earth.
(*courier de bois, or “runners of the forest,” were the early French fur traders/trappers that traded with the First Nations before the Europeans came in large numbers. They ended up intermarrying with them and became the Metis, a cultural hybrid of mostly French and Aboriginal)
Re the riot: the local news did its usual thing of reporting about protests without really talking about what people were protesting about, *but* for the first time I’ve ever seen they also interviewed someone who was protesting who said that there were only 20 or so violent protesters and 150 peaceful ones and that the violent ones did *not* represent the views of the others. So that’s something. I suspect people (ie the vast majority of peaceful protesters) are fed up with the abysmal state of the Downtown Eastside while watching the province pour millions/billions/whatever the giant amount is into the Olympics? I don’t really know because the news didn’t really talk about the issues, just the assholes.
And, um, sorry for doing such a big infodump on my first post (second post? I think I commented once or twice a long time ago?) – is that rude? That might be rude :-( sorry.
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Correction: it’s the devil people of Newfoundland | Reclusive Leftist says:
[...] a fiddler in a canoe who was dressed like a punk devil — just like these folks, in fact. So I thought this whole thing was about Quebec. It’s only now, listening to the commentary on the video, [...]
