American rock musician, multi-instrumentalist, singer-songwriter, producer, sometimes actor, lead vocalist, guitarist, primary songwriter, founder of the Foo Fighters, and drummer for Nirvana, Dave Grohl has established a long and fruitful career in the music industry.

His latest endeavour is a documentary film on iconic Van Nuys, California recording studio

Nirvana

Sound City Studios, birthplace of such legendary records as Nevermind (Nirvana), Rumours (Fleetwood Mac), After The Gold Rush (Neil Young), Rage Against The Machine’s self-titled, and Damn The Torpedoes (Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers).

Directed by Grohl, Sound City takes an in-depth look at the legacy wrought through the four-decade long history of the studio, which closed its doors in 2011. Not much information on the film is known, but looking at the teaser trailer, it appears as if Grohl has nailed-down some impressive interviews to talk about the legendary room, including: Tom Petty, Mick Fleetwood, Trent Reznor, Butch Vig, and John Fogerty.

No release date has been announced, but keep checking www.soundcitymovie.com for updates.

Friday morning began with a tour of the main stage on the Plains of Abraham to check out the production technologies that went into making the sometimes 100,000-strong crowds feel like they were right in the centre of the entertainment storm, so to speak. When Skrillex shows up baffled by the size of your onstage video wall, you’ve done something right…

My first “musical” interview of the day was with the lovely (and just-named Polaris Prize shortlist artist) Kathleen Edwards. Despite being caught off-guard for an on-camera interview, Kathleen was quite engaging and more-than-polite. As I was leaving, my new-found pals from TFO’s BRBR, a French music-focused program, were on their way in. Following the interview and my sit-down with Sarah McLachlan, we all sat together in the lobby at the Hilton over a drink and discussed the festival and some of our other experiences and opinions (many of them mutual) on the industry here in Canada.

It was Mel Kaye of Melanie Kaye PR that first invited me out for FEW last year and, ultimately, brought me back this year, along with plenty other journalists from outlets from coast-to-coast – Fast Forward, Shave Magazine, ThePunkSite.com… A bunch of us gathered on the top floor of the Hilton for some drinks in what kind of felt like a reverse snowglobe – floating and surrounded by beautiful but seemingly microscopic structures, including the landmark Chateau Frontenac.

Our first taste of music came courtesy of Kathleen Edwards on the main stage at 7 pm. Bobby Gorman of ThePunkSite accompanied me for the entire set, after which we set off to the secondary Loto-Quebec stage to see The Barr Brothers and Beirut. A chance meeting with fellow Polaris juror and Al Tuck admirer Vish Khanna in the VIP tent was a nice treat, the two of us trading opinions on all things Canadian music while nursing sweaty cans of Export and eying sweaty concertgoers cramming closer and closer to the stage for the headliners.

Slightly comic: the founder of a reputable punk webzine declaring near the end of Beirut’s set: “Wanna go catch the end of Sarah McLachlan?”As we approached the stage, a stripped-down take of “Adia” started to great us like the distant-but-distinct smell of second-hand smoke when exiting an airport. “Sweet Surrender” and “Angel” both followed, as did a few other cuts that I didn’t recognize. Nonetheless, McLachlan’s set – with large thanks to her stunning harmonies with Melissa McLelland – was worth the trek, and after at, we set off on a Lord Of The Rings-style quest to Le Cercle to meet with some compatriots. And much like The Return of the King, it ended in a quick flash – one song by the band onstage before heading back toward to hotel to sleep off a great night and get set to jet set the next morning.

If I haven’t made it apparent, the Festival d’ete de Quebec is an unbelievable experience – not only for me as a journalist, but clearly for the music fans and citizens of QC, who for $60 were able to take in everything from Bon Jovi and Aerosmith to LMFAO and Skrillex to Canucks like Our Lady Peace, Sarah McLachlan, City & Colour, Metric, and more. Beautiful city, terrific food and drink, and perhaps most notably, great people. No matter how tattered my French may have been, I was never faulted and always encouraged for trying.

Despite what sounded like a pretty full day, Sarah McLachlan sat down after her soundcheck with a few journalists, and I was fortunate enough to be invited to attend.

Having just wrapped a tour accompanied by a symphony, McLachlan is playing the main stage on the Plains of Abraham tonight with past CM cover artist (and one of my faves) Kathleen Edwards (video interview coming up). “This is a different set list,” she says, comparing the two types of shows. “We took out some of the softer stuff and put in as much of the rockin’ stuff as I have which, you know (laughs), is all relative.”

She also spoke about life as a business woman and philanthropist lately, particularly about her newly-launched Sarah McLachlan School of Music in Vancouver, which is a terrific and timely cause to be supporting.

Hearing part of her soundcheck before the interview, I noticed that some of the arrangements of her better-known tunes were arranged rather differently than on-record and had to ask about what informs the decision to change things up. “I’ve been playing a lot of these songs for a long time and they’ve gone through many different incarnations,” she says, offering some examples: “A song like ‘Path Of Thorns’ I’ve stripped right back down. We’ve done it every way imaginable, but tonight we’re going to go totally acoustic.” For her song “Fear,” however, which she hasn’t played in this kind of setting in a long time, she’s decided to “incorporate some of the string arrangements being played with the symphony and added them on tonight, via technology.”

“It’s more engaging for the fans to hear a song they know and love in a different way,” she continues, “whether it’s stripped-down or lusher and larger than on the album.” She also notes that to playing to this many people (tens of thousands are expected to join her on the Plains tonight), you really have to make the music “larger than life” to fill the space. “You want there to be that closeness and inclusiveness,” she adds, “but still has to be a bit grand, too.”

Asked by another journalist to name the song closest to her, McLachlan admits that changes from day-to-day. “If I had to name one, though, on a most consistent basis, I think it’s ‘Angel’ – me and everybody else,” she laughs. “It just always feels good – like I can lose myself in it every time. That’s one of my favourite things about singing and making music is getting lost in it, and hopefully, getting lost with everybody else.”

Even just from the sampling to which we were treated during soundcheck, I think that’s likely to be the case later tonight.

So far, so good here in Quebec. Nothing but beautiful weather, very kind people, and music ranging from good to great.

Was feeling great yesterday despite the total 3 hours of sleep thanks to an early flight and a bunch of delays/connections/taxis/coughing seat neighbours, but it’s hard to feel anything but invigorated in such a beautiful city. I had to hold off on the excitement to do some microbrewery sampling to do some interviews with the well-spoken and insightful “ADD-pop” artist Grimes and the charming atmospheric singer/songwriter Ariane Moffatt – both fittingly products of the Quebec music community and prepping to share a bill later that night.

During the interviews at l’Imperial, I had the chance to hear opening act Mozart’s Sister – very reminiscent of Grimes in the way she manipulates her samples and vocals, though with a distinguishable voice and slightly more straightforward style in terms of mix of influences and the complexity of tracks.

Finally met the lovely Melanie Kaye of Melanie Kaye PR/Fat Wreck Chords Canada, who on top of her work with the festival does press for a myriad of Canadian acts. Always nice when you can shoot the breeze in person with someone who’s long been just a familiar e-mail address and phone voice. Also meeting some fellow journalists from publications like Exclaim!, BeatRoute, ThePunkSite, and a few others – nothing but camaraderie.

The set-up of the mai stage on the city’s Plains of Abraham is something to behold. So far, the technical teams of HUGE acts like Bon Jovi, Skrillex, LMFAO, and others have been blown away at what’s available here in what many international artists consider to be a “non-major market.” Apparently the Skrillex set – featuring a giant space ship that moves around the stage – was something to behold.

My experience with its capabilities came by way of Our Lady Peace and Aerosmith last night. OLP played a great set – a very good mix considering their newest record, Curve, just dropped and they couldn’t taken a cue from other artists of their stature and heavily-favoured the newest. Instead, we heart cuts form (I think) every record thus far. (Except for maybe Burn, Burn, Burn? I was a tad late arriving and navigating through 70,000-odd thousand people can take a lot of focus.)

Aerosmith was what I expected – big, loud, flashy, and a lot of fun. I headed a bit early and caught “Dream On” from afar, but it sounded like the sea of concertgoers – from senior citizens to toddlers in strollers – were having a great time, almost drowning out Steven Tyler’s amplified voice at certain times.