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.

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