Angine de Poitrine draw record crowd to Jazz Fest's TD Stage

By 6:07 p.m. on Monday evening, the first person in a polka dot outfit was already walking toward the LaSalle métro station heading to the Montreal Jazz Festival.

Angine de Poitrine, the anonymous, dot-festooned Québécois instrumental duo that has become the year's biggest music story, was set to play a free show at the TD Stage — and the city was visibly ready.

As the crowd gathered, polka dots multiplied. Two women in matching Adidas FIFA World Cup Colombia team jerseys rode the Orange Line together; one wore a skirt made entirely of gold polka dots. A middle-aged father and teen headed to the show, the teen in a subtle polka-dotted t-shirt and a baseball cap embroidered with a sequined skull.

By the time the metro reached Place-des-Arts, the station was teeming with black, white, and gold polka dots. Two distinctly Québécoise women — one in all white with black polka dots, the other in all black with white polka dots — made their way toward the festival grounds. The one in all black was rocking a badass cane; the one in all white wore loud pink new wave shades. Both had early '80s punk hairstyles that had aged into elegant cropped cuts.

A trio of friends arrived well-adorned in original creations inspired by Angine de Poitrine. There were official band-merch purchases scattered throughout. By 6:25 p.m., a fairly healthy crowd was already waiting for the 7 p.m. show, and the dress code had moved well beyond conservative polka dots into truly inspired costumes.

The duo, whose identity remains a mystery and whose elaborate dot-filled aesthetic has captivated listeners across the province, drew what felt certain to be a record-breaking crowd — a beyond-capacity turnout that reflected their meteoric rise in the city's cultural consciousness.