Open Mic in Parc Jeanne Mance - MTL Event Series
Berkeley has the Greek Amphitheatre, Denver has the Red Rock Amphitheatre, Detroit has the Aretha Franklin Ampitheatre. Here in Montreal, we have a beautiful natural ampitheatre, the little hill near Duluth in Parc Jeanne-Mance where we gather on Mondays for the weekly open-mic. And at our amphitheatre, you don’t have to spend an arm and a leg to sit up in the nosebleeds and see one band. You just bring your beautiful self, whichever of your sexy friends is free that evening, some snacks and drink, (bonus points if you bring some dollars to donate to the host), and you park your bodacious derriere on the nice grassy hill on the South West corner of the park, and let the city serenade you for hours.
Open mics are the heart and soul of the music scene in every city. You find musicians and music lovers, out-of-towners just stopping by, touring musicians on their night off. But no open mic would exist if it wasn’t for the passion and dedication of its host. They make a weekly commitment, bring their own instrument and backline, manage a confusing and ever changing list of artists, keep the energy positive and supportive, not to mention prepare their own performance for the night. Open mic hosts work very hard to keep the local music scene alive. For the Open Mic in Parc Jeanne Mance, all credit for keeping it alive and thriving goes to Lea Keeley (she/her). (Ps, Lea is kind of an open mic goddess around Montreal: in addition to the Jeanne Mance one, Lea hosts the Türbo Haus open mic on Tuesdays, and starting June 3rd, one at Café Tuyo on Saturday nights. But we’re focusing on Open Mic in Parc Jeanne Mance right now.)
It’s been three years since the very first time she offered this gift to the city and the community. This weekly open mic held its first installment on July 13, 2020, and has been back every summer since. This year, Lea will be sharing hosting duties with Olipage (he/him), another long time open mic attendee and occasional host. I was super happy when our Creative Director, Andrew Jamieson, asked me to write about this event because, frankly, I already tell everyone about it. This feature just makes it more official. I sat down to talk with Lea a few days before the first open mic of the 2023 summer series. We sat on the north side of the park. “I have my sunset spots mapped out “, she tells me. Yes, it was a wonderful sunset.
Photo by Janet Best - Featuring Kaitlyn Crossley
Back in 2020, Lea was running the Monday night Open Mic at Local Legend, which was coming up on its 2 year anniversary. Then, the pandemic hit us like a brick (it was way worse than a brick, tbh). During those first weeks of the lockdown, Lea started hosting a weekly online open mic on Instagram live. She kept the Monday night slot, and she did it like a pro. Musician after musician tuned into the live stream, and we would watch each other from our lonely little living rooms. But weeks turned to months…
The first 2 months of the pandemic were really terrifying, particularly for those who are immunocompromised - which is the case for Lea. “I didn’t leave my apartment for 51 days, at all, except to take out the trash. And even then, I would run outside with a mask on, and run back upstairs. And after that 51 days, I just couldn’t take it anymore. I NEEDED a connection. The closest I came to a hug was when I came out of isolation and I went for a walk, and a racoon came up to me and put its paws on me. This was the first connection I’ve had with a living thing in over 50 days!
“Then my parents came to visit. I’d heard about an open mic hosted by my friends Frisco Lee and Erik Fines in Saint Henri”. Frisco and Erik were hosts of the Sunday night open mic at Bar Courcelle, and once the weather got a bit warmer, they shifted to hosting a weekly open mic in Sir George Etienne park. So Lea and her family decided to go. “It blew my whole world open again! Genuine human connection still exists! I need to get out of this fear based mentality. So they were the ones who inspired me to bring the open mic outside to a park, to bring this event to the Plateau. I checked with them to make sure I wasn’t stepping on their turf, and wasn’t taking anything away from their event. They said, ‘Please! The more the merrier!.’”
Photo by Lea Keeley - Featuring Avery Jane
Lea navigated all the challenges of hosting a live music event in a park, like carrying the gear, dodging noise complaints, and managing a sprawling lineup of musicians spread out over a fairly large area of the park. On top of that, she also created Covid protocols for live music during a time when even the Health Minister wasn’t touching live events with a ten-foot pole. Every now and then, the cops would come by to make sure the attendees weren’t using the same microphone, or sitting too close to one another. And aside from once or twice where the drums got too loud, the open mic and Lea’s community passed the test. (This, by the way, is why Lea opted to leave the drums out of this year’s open mic. So just a djembe this year!)
Within a few weeks, the hill was full of blankets, with people sitting in their little “bubbles” and bursting it for their friends. There was just a magical energy on that hill. I asked Lea about some of her most memorable nights from the previous summers. “There was a time about two years ago, a huge jam broke out at the end of the night and we were playing some Stevie Wonder tunes with Patrick (Kilcullen) on keys. The whole audience got up on their feet and started dancing”. Writing this, I remembered how, for multiple years, it was illegal to dance in Quebec. I can only imagine how wonderful it must have felt for everyone to share that moment together and to witness it. Genuine. Human. Connection.
“And there’s always the full moon”. Yes, those moonrises behind the stage are pretty epic.The “stage” is set up on the south west corner of the park, and behind it, you see the city’s skyline. As the night carries, the lights behind the stage are mesmerizing. When it’s dark, Lea sets up small twinkle lights around the mic stand. Every so often, you can catch the full-moonrise right next to the Air Transat buildings. The moon soon becomes the stage light. Sunsets and moonrises…
Photo by Josh Kirschner - Featuring Lea Keeley and Jess Burnside (and the Moon)
I asked Lea about the growth and the mega success of the open mic. How did she make this event such a success? “Just word of mouth! People stumbled upon it in the park, and told others. And frankly, since it was a pandemic, nothing else was happening. So what is better to do on a Monday night than to go to the park, chill, and listen to music?”. She posted about it a few times, and made a Facebook group page, but this was after the first year. This was also where the signup poll eventually took place. This open mic is so popular that Lea created a lottery system to manage the list as early as a Saturday night, and would announce it on a Sunday. That’s dedication, yo! The group page was also a place where musicians would share their projects with one another throughout the year, keeping the community connected, not just on Mondays, but year round. The Open Mic at Park Jeanne Mance Facebook page currently has over 2K members, and grows daily. This year, however, there won’t be any online lottery sign up. Lea and Oli are going the traditional, first-come, first-served route. So if you want to play, show up early and find them right away to get on the list!
Lea lives very close to the park, but there is a lot of gear involved in this event. How does she get all the equipment to the open mic? “The community!” A friend goes to pick her up and they bring everything over together. To make sure to stay on the city’s good side, they only use two battery powered amps for the guitar and mic. And to get it home, everyone lends a hand and helps bring things over to her home. At the end of some nights, I would yell out to the crowd: ‘Who wants to help me bring my gear home?’ and we would just form a train and walk everything to my apartment which is just a few blocks down”. This year the setup is much more minimalistic and the only percussion is a djembe. Big thanks go out to Big Daddy Queen Power and Sean Hassard, who are donating their battery powered amps to the event, much like Lea who is donating her time and energy to provide this public service.
Speaking of donations…This isn’t a part of the Ville de Montreal programming (though it should be). Lea is not being paid for this event. A hat used to be passed around at the open mic to collect some money so Lea could improve the setup, get a permit, and reinvest into the community. Throughout the summer of 2021, she had raised more than $1000, which was unfortunately stolen by someone close to her. When this happened, Lea wasn’t even sure she wanted to bring the event back. That kind of betrayal made her question the open mic, and if anyone valued her work. Thankfully, she did return, and it’s evident she does this for nothing more than the community. She questions out loud if she should pass the hat again. “I feel like the community already gave everything, and I lost that. So I shouldn’t ask for more”. I can’t disagree more. That’s not how tipping works. And as we move further away from a cash currency, we should all be thinking about how to support grassroot initiatives in ways that go directly in the hands or accounts of the artists. I would highly encourage that you either bring money to the open mic to donate to this event, to the artists, or participate in any online fundraising Lea organizes. Not only to ensure the survival of Open Mic at Park Jeanne Mance, but to give Lea (and Oli) a deserved return on the love and energy they pour into this event.
The first open mic this year was on Monday, May 22, and I was in attendance. I brought my hyperactive dog who was super happy to chill in the grass and occasionally bark (he’s too shy to go behind the mic but he likes to sing). Our conversation from the prior week was still fresh in my mind, and I was emotional thinking about how the last few years felt like forever, yet went by like a flash. I found myself really embarrassed when Lea passed the hat, and I realized that I didn’t bring any cash with me (don’t be like me. Be better than that.). It was a bit chilly and it felt good to layer up. The musicians kept rubbing their fingers together between songs to warm up their hands, which only added to the charm of the night. This was one of the quieter nights and the line up was already packed until 10 p.m. I probably made someone’s night by dropping out of the list due to a finger related injury. Someone (or two?) had set up a little hammock on the stage left and they were maximum chilling with some live music. I ran into many friends and hugged them super tightly. Being on that hill, the concept of time was distorted even more than ever. It simultaneously felt like it was just yesterday since my first and last open mic at the Jeanne Mance amphitheater. I felt at home. See you there!
Photo by Terry Hughes - Featuring Lea Keeley