The End of Pop Montreal, the world collapses.

It happens every year, it’s time to get used to it, but it’s just so unexpected and sudden. On the last day of the festival, after the Making Music film, I walked home and retreated to the futon in my hallway that was still there from having some houseguests and collapsed until the next morning. Having spent the whole week running around from venue to venue, sans-bicycle, in the rain, in the cold, in the heat, and coughing my little lungs out thanks to bronchitis, the sudden calm and the silence in my apartment is scary, but I have to admit that I’m a little bit thankful that it’s all over.

On Saturday, after an early morning trip to Value Village, I headed out to Divan Orange for an afternoon show: the Zoobombs! I had missed them the night before because I decided on going home early, feeling really nauseous and just not up for a full night of shows, nothing was going to get in the way of missing my favourite Japanese band rock out in the middle of the day. And I’m talking rock out in Japanese!

After that, I went over to Puces Pop and ran into a bunch of the awesome people that did the Indyish Art Market back at the Fringe fest.

I decided it was about time I go to a Film Pop film and went to see Super Amigos at the Portuguese association, a film written, produced and directed by Arturo Perez Torres about real life super heroes in Mexico, out to save their country from homophobia, pollution, poverty, landlords trying to turn their buildings into luxury condos and leaving the poor to find another place to live, and from the people abusing of animal rights in cases like bull-fighting. The fact that these people, who also happens to be masked wrestlers, actually exist, separates them from the superheroes we are used to, but instead of saving women from burning buildings, they work to save the whole city and country from each separate causes that are a raging problem in Mexico.

After that, I was so tempted to give up and go home, trying to figure out what to do that night when the weather was so bad and the choices of things to do that night so numerous, it was incredibly painful to pick where I would be spending my night. Finally, I chose what was previously far from my first choice: Islands. I’ve seen them many many times last year, the last time being at the Pop Montreal in 2006, and having spoken to Islands’ resident heartbreaker earlier in the week, Patrick Gregoire, who let me in on the fact that they probably wouldn’t be playing any shows until their next album comes out with a hopeful release date of New Years or maybe the spring, I decided it had been long enough and walked down the hill towards le Cabaret Juste Pour Rires.

Opening band Harlem Shakes ended being a band that I had heard before, even carried around on my ipod without knowing what I was listening to, but being able to sing along to a few songs. Islands then came on, playing all new songs except for 2, one of them being Where There’s A Will There’s A Whalebone, where they were joined by members of Supreme, Giovanni Marks and Cadence Weapon, before walking off the stage.

I left before the encore and went over to Escogriffes to catch the end of the set by the Paper Cranes. Miranda’s keyboard stopped working halfway through the set which led to a drum solo and ended up as a full blown jam session while the sound technician tried to figure out what the deal was. All was restored and the little basement venue was dancing once more.

Despite Tessa’s text message that fun was to be had at Zoobizarre, I had my own after party at Chez Claudette and stayed up with the wonderful Paper Cranes, exchanging music off our ipods, and talking until the early hours before they had to head out to the airport. Quite the full couple of days, and so much fun!

Also, check out Miranda’s gorgeous gorgeous amazing tattoo of my favourite Klimt painting by Gerry Kramer: