While only a few people get the chance to live the dream of being a rock star and playing onstage with their favourite band, Montreal drummer Antoine Demeule was lucky enough to experience the rush not only once but twice.
“There is nothing better than playing in front of thousands people,” Demeule said.
Demuele rocked the house last week at the Ottawa Bluesfest, where he joined the Killers, his favourite band, on stage.
It wasn’t easy getting plucked out of the sprawling crowd. With a large white cloth sign that read, “Can I Drum?” in hand, Demeule waited nearly four hours before the concert started to get up close to the stage.
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The life-long fan knew the band’s set list by heart.
“These songs are more than likely a part of my DNA by now because I’ve been listening to them for so long,” he said.
Just before the band was about to play the song For reasons unknown, Killers’ frontman Brandon Flowers selected one lucky fan out of the crowd to help play the song.
Demeule describes himself as a “lucky guy who did his homework.”
The dream-like experience felt more like déjà vu for Demeule. This is the second time he has been selected to play with the Killers.
In 2018, when traveling in Europe, he went to see the Killers in Scotland. During that performance is when Demeule was brought on stage to play the same song as he did in Ottawa nearly a year to the date.
“That was magical because I didn’t expect to play with my favourite band,” Demeule said.
“If there was one moment in my life where I did not think of anything else it was at that moment.”
Demeule said when Flowers asked him to come on stage at Bluefest he recognized the Montreal drummer “right away.”
He says he has practiced and played that song over a hundred times in the basement of his South Shore home. The drummer even learned the subtle differences of how the band plays it during live performances.
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Demeule says playing in front of a crowd of thousands of screaming fans was like living a dream, but that he approached the event as if he was in the comfort of his own home.
“It was like in my basement with my headset with the band but in front me with another 45,000 people.”
The Killers’ fan says he hasn’t given up on attempting the impossible for a third time.
Demeule has seen the band in concert eight times already. If the band isn’t tired of seeing his face behind the drums, he says he would love to play again.