Translated by EmeraldLatias:

As the young couple just out of adolescence who came from parking their vehicle on Sainte-Catherine wearing shirtsleeves (?), we didn't doubt for a second that their destination was L'Olympia of Montreal, 50 meters from there, where the Goo Goo Dolls were playing Wednesday night.

We said that it was just the kind of young people that we'd seen at shows for the american group in the mid nineties. It's curiously the type of public who had generously filled the floor of the L'Olympia -- a young crowd, filled with couples in their thirties, but also with fans who weren't of age to go to the shows for adults when John Rzeznik's band penned Name and made a name for themselves.

To say this performance was a bath of rejuvenation would be in the tone -- as much for the trio and their fellow musicians than for the help. I don't know at which point the Goo Goo Dolls have seduced the bunch of new fans from the recent albums -- of which, Something For the Rest of Us came out last year -- but enter the couples who embraced like they were reliving their youth in the room and those who jostled around up front -- everyone was definitely having a good time.

It has to be noted that if the Goo Goo Dolls had never been a powerhouse or cult band in the 1990s like the Nirvanas or other Nine Inch Nails at the time, they've garnered a large part of the success in their backbone (?). Wednesday, after starting the ball with the recent Sweetest Lie, Rzeznik, Robby Takac and Mike Malinin balanced it with Big Machine, Slide Dizzy and Here Is Gone in succession, all pulled from their first album of big success, all played like it had to -- without fluff and with aplomb.

It has to be said that with a cascade of hits behind him, the trio doesn't embarass them selves with useless hardware. In a room like L'Olympia, it's best this way.

And when you have a public who can sing in unison no matter which song you're playing, everything swims. Better Days, with it's keyboard beginning, doesn't hurt as much as effect you, but it's very obviously Name and Iris that always flies higher than all the others.

"This song had changed my life in one day," declared Rzeznik before starting an impeccable version of his classic song, a dominant force of six acoustic strings. He didn't need to do an introduction for Iris, one of the most-played songs in radio of all genres at the end of the 90's. And we've heard all the cries of all the girls right at the first measures of the song.

But there were also recent Dolls' songs that hit the mark, like Let Love In, who'd seen the floor completely sing back the five year-old song.

All in all, there was nothing grandiose, but a damn good rousing show that should demonstrate that the Goo Goo Dolls are among the rare bands who've known success in the 90's who continue to pursue their path.