So it’s Friday evening and we’ve just landed in Montreal and snaked our way through a mile-long meet-and-greet customs line (Everyone was there!  Tracy Young! JC and Alex!) and settled into the deliciously chic serenity of our room at the Hotel Gault—whereafter we stroll over to the Welcome Center at the Delta where volunteers are passing out little plastic baggies filled with perfectly folded slips of paper reading NEW DEALERS ON THE MARKET—baggies which, upon closer inspection, contain notices for Saturday’s BBCM health summit titled Party Drugs=Risky Sex?—because, let’s face it, the 17th annual Black and Blue Festival isn’t only one big party—but rather a smorgasbord of cultural and artistic activities.  Rather like a gay cruise—without the rocking boat. 

So after a round of Welcome Center smooches and hugs (Everyone was there! Tracy Young! Jake and Jesse! Gael!), we head over to the oh-so-chic Sherbrooke Avenue for the President’s VIP Cocktail at Holt Renfrew (sort of the Sak’s Fifth Avenue of Montreal).  Business cocktail attire suggested—said the invite—which we’d neglected to read, but no matter, because BBCM doesn’t stand too much on formality—and once we’re inside, the place is packed with camera crews and video cams, because Quebec’s entire Gay Chamber of Commerce is in attendance, along with possibly some gay ambassador from the Netherlands (Everyone was there! Robert Vezina! Kat Coric! Caroline Rousse!), and we’re all feted with all sorts of delectables such as cranberry blueberry vodka shots and mini grilled cheese (can we say delish?) along with slender splits of iced hard cider and, honestly, it’s such a spread, and everyone looks so elegant and handsome, and with Charles Poulin on the decks sending out such cool cocktail grooves—well, we almost can’t bear to leave.

And yet somehow we stumble out onto the street—bearing a sweet little Holt Renfrew swag bag, filled with all sorts of Jo Malone fragrance and emollients.  Perfection!  Exactly the sort of product we’ll need to combat the tolls of this circuit weekend.  What an excellent start to this year’s Black and Blue.  Make note to self: don’t miss President’s VIP Cocktail next year. 

And so, feeling frisky and fun, we head over to Leather Ball at Medley (Everyone was there! Well, almost everyone—) where it’s almost one a.m. and where the leather boyz and daddies have coalesced into one massive leather harness.  And right away, we run into Alex who sends out his red laser to notify JC to get over here.  They’re laser light sisters! They’re the circuit equivalent of the camp swimming pool call-and-response: hubba-hubba, ding-ding. 

And on the boards, it’s David Knapp plating Deb Cox’s “Everybody Dance,” which, already, at this early point, is threatening to become the song of the weekend (and hereafter will be referred to as “Everybody Dance, Deb.”)  And yet no matter how often it’s heard, there’s still something joyful in its admonition: “everybody dance—now.”  Just as empowering and gratifying as the words “Gimme a hug”—a phrase that we’ve co-opted as our m.o. for the weekend.   

Club Medley always works for Leather Ball given its slightly seedy grotto quality—and Robert Vezina escorts us upstairs so that we can cop some photo ops of David Knapp in action.  And while we’re upstairs, there’s an elaborate production number called “Power Dream” which is something of a cross between Woody Allen’s Sleeper and Kubrick’s Clockwork Orange, if you can imagine such a thing—but it’s all good because the hottie quotient is high—and especially on the floor. 

And just as we’re reading Joe Caro’s tm—who should stroll into the maelstrom but Joe Caro Himself, fresh from Parking and totally encased in black leather, complete with brand-new black riding crop—and the way that one struts across the floor leaves us reeling.  That is one fierce SISTAH!  She is totally our people—and as the song has it, we’re down with our peeps.

Ceevox sings—and good for her for showing up.  She sings “I Believe in Me”—which Tracy Young has mixed into something ferosh—and then it’s Tracy’s turn at the decks as she tosses down mixes of “You’ve Got To (Free My Love)” and “I Make the Beat Go Boom, Papi”—and amen to that, with a roomful of hottie leather daddies and their puppies, who’s going to complain about a single thing? 

And from there, it’s on to Military on Saturday night.  First stop: Parking—which as someone explains to us is sort of the Club Babylon (from Queer as Folk, peeps—keep up....) of Montreal—and how apt that description appears as we enter on Saturday at midnight to find the place packed and happy.  It’s Junior on the boards.  Junior with his semi-regular residency at Parking.  The man has a home here—and Pascal, the Parking manager, has helped make, and keep, this club a place where the happy people go to dance.  You walk in and you feel at home.  And there are few places as good as those which Junior calls home.  He’s got it werking here at Parking on Saturday night at the Uniform Party and the boyz are eating it up. (Everyone was there! Doug and Josh! Jake and Jesse—again!) It’s that crystal clear beat with a ringing pulse that seeps into the pores and makes you move—happily.  And these boyz are—happy. 

And of course, there’s Joe Caro, fresh from a hook-up which didn’t work out—and which had him explaining, “Oops, sorry, gotta book.  My friend just got locked outta the hotel room.”  Whereupon he’s off and running—to Parking.  Where the boyz are.  And where Chris is sporting the fiercest Gucci belt—and the nicest 5K Cartier watch one could ever expect to fall off a truck at JFK.  And Adam T.’s arrived with his Boston posse, and Jake and Jesse are hanging with Jerome, and Junior’s werqing the #($^& out of “Take Me Up, Take Me Higher” and “Fascinated” and as Junior shifts into wailing vocals, there’s no question—this is a full-on Saturday night blow-out at Montreal’s Club Babylon called PARKING.

And of course, this being Montreal, this being Black and Blue, there’s always another party, another club, around the corner—and so, somehow, we tear ourselves from Parking and head to Club Medley for another round.  This time for Military Ball in the very capable hands of Manny Lehman—which means we enter to the sounds of Rihanna’s “Umbrella”—which could hardly be more appropriate given the light rain which is currently falling on the boyz along St. Catherine and also that we’re somehow, all of us, all over town, under the very large and encompassing umbrella of BBCM. 

And all over Club Medley, the boyz are coming and going, as T.S. Eliot would have it, because it’s Saturday night and Military Ball is the prelude to Main Event, the Saturday night party which the locals wait for and the out-of-town boyz flock to (Everyone was there! Michael Stanley! Chris and Raoul! John and Tim!) and the floor is a mass of lasers and lights as Manny werqs his military magic.  The man owns this party.  It’s his.  He’s played Military enough to have earned the sobriquet Military Manny.  And when Suzanne Palmer appears onstage, to tumultuous applause, she werqs as hard as Manny—to keep the boyz happy and hard and pounding the floorboards beneath their feet.  These are people who know how to entertain and keep a crowd moving.  We see boyz from South Beach and boyz from New York—boyz from all over who have made the trek to Montreal for Black and Blue—because why?  Because as Manny puts it “I Just Can’t Get Enough”—but mostly because Montreal is a party town that knows how to party well and party hard.

And when, inevitably, it comes time for the party to end and the boyz to disperse, there’s that lovely walk along St. Catherine: the search for take-out—or take home.  Picking up something to eat for the night—a little grub, a lotta love—because that’s what Montreal does best: it knows how to love—and it makes you know it too. 

As Alexander Pope might have put it, there’s something about Montreal, and especially during Black and Blue, that makes one feel the “endless sunshine of a spotless mind.”  You might have been here before—but Montreal makes you feel it all anew.