Mozart’s Last Stand
Just before Easter 1969 the owners of the Town and Country entertainment complex that housed three venues, including our club Sister Ray’s, closed shop (ostensibly because they owed $500,000 to Quebec Hydro). In reality, one of the owners, who became close to us, had wanted out of the partnership, and this was a good opportunity for him to accomplish the departure.
There was talk of setting up a new club near the Mount Royal Chalet, but in the meantime our Hippie School Magic Bus was without a motor. A friend of ours said his ‘mob uncle’ owned a boxing arena in Quebec City and that we should try to open a club above it. We decided to do a show in that space and see what came of it. “Maunday Thursday” someone drove us to Quebec City and dropped us off with our U-Haul trailer parked on the street where we would spend the night, and then the driver returned to Montreal. We soon discovered that we could not get a license to do the concert above that arena because of the strict ordinance that prohibited booking a venue during Easter
That evening we were picked up by a motorcycle gang and taken to their headquarters about half an hour outside of Quebec City. We played the
entire weekend with members from all the gangs in the area coming to see us. Only one gang leader spoke English, but music is its own language. After the weekend we had a consultation in an Old City cafe and decided to take the train back to Montreal where we were immediately given notice of eviction for being behind on our house rent. That was the end of Mozart’s Quebec experience. We returned to Saskatoon to play a few gigs, but then our bass player said he’d had enough.
As Mozart sang so many times in the past: ‘This is the end, beautiful friend’.
Seventeen months later………………………
A year later, in 1970, three Mozart alumni, along with Jack Lenz, formed the avant-garde band Jalál and debuted at the Crypt in Saskatoon for a week in late September, and then proceeded to do a nine-month tour of Canada, playing extensively in the province of Quebec once again in February of 1971. We ran into some of the same motorcycle gangs from our Mozart days, and they followed us around on our tour through la Belle Province. We stopped in Quebec City to play at the historic Palais Montcalm to a packed house.
Again, in 1972, Jalál made a three month tour of Quebec and met the same warm response. Some of us hope we can again take a musical visit to La Belle Province. Is not Easter all about Resurrection?
