Amnesia Rockfest is a Shitshow in Small Town Quebec

The population of Montebello, Quebec hovers around 1000 permanent residents. So when hometown boy Alex Martel decided to put on a music festival there at only 17-years-old, people were justifiably skeptical about just how much it could accomplish. The thing was, because of Montebello’s location—“kind of in the middle of nowhere, between Ottawa and Montreal,” he says—music fans interested in seeing their favourite bands live had to travel to the closest big city to make it happen. Martel just “figured it would be fun” to start his own festival in his hometown, and so Amnesia Rockfest was born. It was small at first, with three bands and about 500 people showing up (in such a small town it should still be noted as a victory), and after it came and went the team decided to call it a day. It wasn’t originally supposed to be an annual thing. But Martel got bored in the off year and decided that they’d make a go of it the next. By their third year, Martel realized they might be able to actually turn the festival into a viable business when he and his team watched in awe as people who were “not from the area” walked through the gates. Since then, Rockfest hasn’t stopped, and it’s grown into a monster event, with about 200,000 total attending per year, according to Martel. Not bad for a teenager who just wanted to see his favourite bands without having to drive for over an hour.

When he picks up the phone Martel sounds exhausted, but says things are good. He’s working on “a million things” at the moment. That kind of work ethic is essential with live production, and Martel knows that well. It’s nearly impossible to prepare for everything that could go wrong when setting up for a festival, and Rockfest certainly hasn’t escaped its fair share of problems. In 2013, they ran into a now infamous wall of shit, literally. According to an Exclaim! review of the festival, Rockfest’s problems for the weekend included overflowing and uncleaned port-a-potties, three hour waits at the box office, cancellations of bands without notifying concertgoers, garbage everywhere, and even campers being turned away from over-capacity campsites, regardless of prior reservations. Martel says that due to working with a new team who underestimated the size of the festival, things were not handled well. Needless to say, he dealt with the problem and 2014 was a comeback year. But then, earlier this year, it was revealed that production company AD4X Videos had released a porno titled Casting at the Rockfest. The video had porn star Pamela Kayne and the company approach concertgoers, and then Kayne, you know, touched their private bits in typical festival camping interiors, like tents and trailers. AD4X Videos president André de la Seine told CBC that all participants were consenting adults and knew it was for a film, and all of the shooting was off-site on private land, so they didn’t need to ask permission. Still, you know, Martel isn’t too pumped that they used the festival’s name, and he’s talked to his lawyer to figure out how to proceed. He insists the media’s depiction of him being furious about the whole situation is an exaggeration, but it’s still not cool they did it.

Time will tell just what comes from the 2015 Amnesia Rockfest, but so far its only problem seems to be an over-abundance of huge names, like Snoop Dogg, Pixies, System of a Down, Refused, and Rancid will play …And Out Come The Wolves in full. The Offspring are doing all of Americana. Famous Jackass Steve-O is going to be there. Punk and Metal fans from all over will descend on the site from June 18-21. And hey, who knows. Some of them might even get lucky.

Noisey: Were you ever anxious about embarking on something so big?
Alex Martel: Not really, because it was super small at first. I was just doing it for fun. I always had a huge drive and lots of ambition, but at the same time I didn't really take it that seriously, because I figured it wasn't really realistic that it could become a huge thing. Obviously now, it's exceeded all my expectations, or you know, all my wildest dreams. It was really a natural process.

Do you ever get anxious about putting it on now?
It's really stressful. There are so many things to take care of. But I've got a good team behind me now, and I'm used to all the craziness. I guess the hardest part over the years was that every year we were pretty much starting everything from scratch again, just because it grew so big. It wasn't like, "oh, you know, we're just doing the same setup as the last year and expecting the same amount of people" and everything. It was like, "okay, now we have to start the whole thing again from scratch to accommodate this growing demand." Actually this year is the first year we're pretty much keeping the same setup as the previous year, so it's kind of easier this year on that end.

How does it feel to be in your tenth year?
It's pretty crazy. It feels like I've been doing it forever, and at the same time it feels like it's already been 10 years. I never thought when I started that it would be going on for 10 years.

What did you think would happen when you started it?
Actually the first year we did it, there was never supposed to be a second year. We actually skipped a year. During that year that we didn't do it, it just felt like, "aw, I really want to do this again," and it really sucked that I didn't do it. I just felt like I needed to do it again. So afterwards it was decided it would become an annual thing. I remember the second year we did it, we were expecting it to be a lot bigger than the first year, but it ended up being pretty similar to the first year. I remember some people telling me, "man, we're in Montebello in the middle of nowhere. You can't expect that many people to come. We're lucky that we got 600 or 700 people or whatever. That's as far as it can go." So I thought maybe I should call it quits, or take the opposite direction and just go full on and book a lot more bands, add stages and try to make it bigger. And the third year was the first time we got people to come from far away for the event, and I guess that kind of set the tone for the growth of all the next years after that.

What do you think went wrong in 2013?
Long story short, from the first year until 2012, it was pretty much the same team that handled production and logistics and that sort of thing, but by 2012 the festival was already really big, and we just felt like the team that was there wasn't as solid and experienced as what we needed. So for 2013 we brought a totally new team that was people who used to work for other, bigger promoters, and basically in a nutshell they really underestimated the amount of work and everything, and they didn't really delegate. As I was doing my follow-ups, like I do with everyone, they would always be like, "everything's fine, don't worry, everything's on track" until we saw all the problems happening. So obviously we didn't keep that team for 2014, and we had to fix the logistical issues, which we did in 2014, and this year we pretty much have the same team for the most part.

Was there actually an "ocean of pee" on the ground, as [member of the local municipal council] Nicole LaFlamme told the Ottawa Citizen?
No, I mean sometimes some press outlets like to exaggerate and create scandal or whatever. It was nowhere near as big as that.

Can you explain the whole situation with Casting at the Rockfest?
Oh, the porn thing?

Yeah.
That's another funny thing. Like I said, sometimes the press likes to blow things up out of proportion. That's a good example. All the interviews I did, basically what I said was that I'm just not happy they did that without our permission, and that they're using our name without our permission. And so I was asked like, "what are you guys gonna do?" And I said we're looking into it with our lawyer and that's it. Then I was seeing all these articles like, "Rockfest suing pornographic company" or "Rockfest outraged", "Rockfest furious". And I was just like, that's not what I said. Basically what I said was that we were annoyed that we never gave permission or anything. It kind of made us sound like we were these super crazy, anti-pornography conservative types or whatever, which was kind of ridiculous. So that was kind of weird. [laughs]

Do you think if they asked permission that you'd allow it?
No, I don't think any festival organizer would officially allow something like that. It would just look bad. And we're not the only festival that had this happen. This same company did the same thing at a few other festivals in Quebec. They did it at a Western festival, and a big carnival in Quebec City. Basically what I said about it was pretty much what the organizers at those festivals said as well.

That you're not anti-pornography but you don't really want that going on at your festival.
Yeah, I mean, we're a music festival. We're not a porn festival. [laughs]

Have you seen the video?
Yeah, of course. We wanted to see what it was. And to be honest, it kind of sucked. They really weren't good. It's like, everyone's allowed to like their own thing, but I know for me it doesn't turn me on to see some guys getting jerked off, you know? It's like, "what?"

Alex Martel

When I saw the video, I couldn't understand what the big deal was. I mean I understand you not wanting your name used, but the video is definitely nothing special or interesting.
I haven't seen it yet, but I'm told that when that whole controversy happened and it was all over the press, they released a third part, and apparently there's actually real sex on it, not just hand jobs. But I haven't seen it yet.

What do you think Amnesia means to people?
I think people love the festival for the fact that they can just take a weekend off every year and just kind of let loose basically. It's just such a fun vibe, everyone's partying together no matter where you're from or what language you speak. It's like everyone just becomes friends with each other and it's just such a cool vibe. Obviously people love the lineup. Lots of people tell us they spend their whole year looking forward to Rockfest. So when they have a bad day at their crappy job or some issues in their personal life, the one thing they look forward to is Rockfest, and it helps them get through the year. And that's awesome, because I've felt that way my whole life in regards to music. It's always been my outlet.

What does it mean to you personally now, ten years in?
It means pretty much everything in the sense that I started doing it as a hobby just for fun, and it eventually became my job, and I spend pretty much all my time working on it. It's pretty much all my life.

Matt Williams is a writer and photographer living in Toronto. — @MattGeeWilliams