The Grammys: Canadians Steal the Show

I thought it was the best Grammy Awards show ever. I thought the music was great, the staging was awesome, I liked the mixture of old and  young.

And I was so proud of our Canadian artists.

Michael Buble, Neil Young, the amazing teenager Justin Bieber.

But of course for me, the highlight of the show was when Arcade Fire, from Montreal, Québec, ran away with the big one.

In a major Grammys upset, Montreal's Arcade Fire won the coveted trophy for album of the year last night, helping reduce favoured contender Eminem to also-ran status.

The Los Angeles Times may have been surprised.

The Montreal indie rock band's victory was one of the biggest upsets in recent Grammy history, with a visibly stunned frontman Win Butler thanking the Staples Center crowd before playing a second song at the ceremony simply, as he put it in his speech, "because we like music."

But I'm not. Because I've followed them for a long time, and they are simply the best live music act in the world.

For those in the Ukrainian Cultural Center on Friday, however, the band's win underlined what many already felt for the band but wouldn't have dared to expect on the Grammys' stage.

"When they played 'Intervention,' I stopped working and just watched, amazed," Carlson said of Friday's show. "The applause sounded like an arena in there."

Don't believe him or me?

Then check out this show at Madison Square Gardens...



I was hoping they'd play Rebellion to close out the show.

But hearing them say "Merci Montréal" at the end was even better.

French and English Canadians playing together. And conquering the world. It doesn't get better than that eh?

Even in the darkness of Harper's Canada some lights are still shining...

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