We Went to Suoni Per Il Popolo Festival to Confrim That Guitar Music Is Dead

Suoni Per Il Popolo is a small-scale festival taking place almost entirely on Montreal’s St Laurent Boulevard. The name means “Sound for the people” and the spirit of collectivity is as much apparent as the inclusion of anything loosely defined as sound. Largely indoor, cheap and small-scale, the shows are curated to appeal to a perhaps slightly outdated but nonetheless comforting ethos – the strange is welcome and the accessible is politely asked to leave.

When I told some friends about the bands I was going to see at this year’s edition of Suoni, I got semi-excited gasps of “Low!” or “Swans are here?” or “Oh yeah, Ought!” (guitar bands are really into the one word name thing). But I came away from the whole thing turned off by the very acts I was told to be excited about seeing. It’s not that these bands put on bad performances — far from it. In fact, both Ought and particularly Low were two of tightest rock bands I’ve seen in the last few years. But something was missing in the room during those shows, and it wasn’t until a moment during a guitar solo in Avec Le Soleil Sortant de sa Bouche’s set that I got a handle on what it was. There, standing in front of me was a man ripping his hands apart on a fretboard and gyrating nearly uncontrollably beneath a wall of noise. And yet everyone around me just stood still and assessed, judged or texted. However, a few nights before, I saw a wave of people jump up all at once just because some bearded guy with an accordion said “Hey!” a little louder than the last time he said it. My conclusion was that guitar music was in fact once and for all dead, and it's for one simple reason: it doesn’t make people move.

That isn’t to say that guitar music is bad or worth any less, but it was undeniable that, during a show put on by klezmer-inspired Gypsy Kumbia and Lemon Bucket Orkestras, people seemed to be more alive. With sweat raining from the ceilings due to the sheer body heat in the place, St Laurent Boulevard’s Sala Rosa was packed to the brim, with the floor was shaking at the foundation during both Gypsy Kumbia and Lemon Bucket’s sets. I saw maybe three people stop dancing during the entire three and a half hour show, which included Lemon Bucket walking their dozen or so members through the crowd and out into the streets of Montreal before being stopped by the cops. I heard someone literally say “This is the happiest I’ve ever been” while skipping down Mount Royal street behind a blaring tuba. The happiest they’ve ever been. Say what you will about any of the four-piece jam bands you saw this summer, but they didn’t give someone their greatest moment in life while playing in the god damn street.

Just to be clear, by guitar music I don’t mean bands with guitar players. Young Magic put on one of the most enticing and energetic shows I saw all year, and their lead singer just happens to play guitar. But at no point did a gratuitous blues-based solo force me to question why I was there. Likewise, Fuckbuttons impressed me, not so much musically, but by making a whole crowd of people leave their egos at the door and have fun with some video game synths. If the audience is always right in these scenarios, the message is clear: the bands that can convince people to shake their bodies in a way they wouldn’t normally do, even in their own bedroom, are the future.

Eric Séguin is a writer living in Montreal.