Six land in hospital during free Angine de Poitrine performance

Mysterious Québécois experimental rockers Angine de Poitrine are having their viral moment in the sun. The duo’s performance at Montreal International Jazz Festival last week put up record numbers, with the attendance reaching heights not seen since Stevie Wonder’s 2009 appearance at the festival. The masked duo’s June 27 set drew hundreds of thousands of concertgoers, according to organizers, who spilled down entire avenues of the city to see the pseudonymous pair perform. Festival organizers announced that they had to cut off access to the site half an hour before the band went on at 9:30 p.m. due to the crowd’s size; last year, when the band played the same festival, the crowd numbered around 2,000.

According to Montreal’s emergency medical services, six individuals were transported to the hospital during the band’s set for a range of ailments, from intoxication to falls (there were, as far as we know, no incidences of chest pain). The injuries did not stem from any one event and took place throughout the band’s two-hour set. An additional five attendees were treated for heatstroke. The festival, the world’s largest of its kind, began on June 25 and runs through July 4 and features appearances by Béla Fleck, Saint Levant, Billy Bragg, and others. Read our review of Angine de Poitrine’s recent album, Vol. II, here.

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