Allan Youster on the Bonaventure Curling Club
Image: Poster advertising concert at Montreal Bonaventure Curling Club, 1967. Alex Taylor collection. Courtesy of Alex Taylor
Transcription: The Bonaventure Grand Bash! / with six great bands / The Rabble / The Ashbury District / Simple Simon and the Piemen. / The Munks / The Influence / The Orange Tangerine Toilet / On Saturday June 17 / Price $1.75 or with coupon $1.50 / Presented by Groups and Sound Service!
Credit: ARCMTL collection. Interview was conducted in Montreal on November 26, 2015 with Allan Youster by Louis Rastelli, Director of ARCMTL.
Duration: 1:55 min
Excerpt of an interview with Allan Youster, former doorman at The New Penelope. He shares his excitement about the all-day concerts that he used to attend as a teenager in the 1960s.
During the 60s, it was common to see all-day concerts in venues that could bring together large numbers of young people. They were often large spaces or halls not originally designed for concerts: arenas, gymnasiums, community halls, parking lots, etc. The Montreal Bonaventure Curling Club itself was turned into a big concert hall for teenagers. One could go there to see several popular groups per show, generally coming from Montreal, Toronto and Ottawa. This place helped the groups to gain visibility with the Montreal media and offered them the opportunity to rub shoulders with other local groups. This concert at the Montreal Bonaventure Curling Club in the summer of 1967 is a good example. It featured a dozen local bands playing back-to-back, including The Rabble and The Munks.
Transcription:
Allan Youster: Well, the shows I remember in high school was the Bonaventure Curling Club—for me, that was it!
We always knew somebody with a car. A huge parking lot and thousands of kids turned up! Thousands! In Montreal, it was happening! That was during the time of the Penelope on Stanley. The Bonaventure was IT for us in [Ville] St-Laurent and people came from ALL over, and you would get 8 bands! Nothing really stood out except the fact that there was SO many people. I mean, the sound was cavernous—again, the sound’s bad!
I remember a group called The Munks and they covered The Zombies’ “She’s Not There” before we heard it here [on the radio]. All the bands, The Haunted, MG & The Escorts, they brought bands in from Toronto, but nothing stands out except THE CROWD! It was the teenage crowd, you had the parking lot scenario, people looking for girls, girls looking for boys, girls looking for trouble, boys looking for trouble, alcohol, drugs—no drugs—if there were drugs it was so low key we didn’t pick up on it.
It was really high school on an octane level, it was a sockhop with alcohol, it was like… High school dances had bands, I remember, yeah, Winston Churchill had bands, Saint-Laurent High School had bands.
Louis Rastelli: Any names of bands that you recall?
Allan Youster: Bands [laughs] were even more localized. But back then a band could be local for a high school and four blocks away [laughs], nobody knew! So it was like the local scene was really funny. Because these days, I mean, it’s hard to have a local scene on 4 blocks. Doesn’t last long. So they’re on the internet pretty fast.