Wednesday at Pop Montreal!

Woooo! Let the games begin!!

I went with Indyish reporters, Jonathan Stewart and Sarah Beall, to pick up our pases at Hotel Godin and wade through the goody bag and press material. The sampler cd looks great this year though I haven’t had a chance to listen to it yet (or do my laundry for that matter)

First show of the night was Shotgun and Jaybird, a band from Sackville, NB whose line up includes Julie Doiron (of Eric’s Trip and her wicked-awesome solo stuff) plus 3 really laid back friendly dudes. We got a great interview with them after the show which we’re gonna put up on the blog in the next few days.

Caught Eagle and Talon at Club Lambi while waiting for the 55 bus up St. Laurent. A 3-piece group from LA, they are minimalist rock with a guitarist/singer who played white stripes-style raw 60s rock riffs and had a drummer banging it out straight. They used a keyboard for some songs but their best tracks had a simple 3-chord pattern with the female vocalist rocking over top and screaming from time to time. A good concept but generally not executed with enough original style to make us wanna stick around.

From there we went to the Green Room where Uncut played intense, loud, and fast, like hardcore but minus the low-throated death wail. Think: the crowd squinting. People were mainly into it, although I took issue with their lyrics which included the phrase “let’s just kill all the living” repeated as a chorus, which seemed overly thought out, but not quite ironic enough to make any sense. I also thought they were saying “let’s just kill all the women” for a good portion of the song.

We went upstairs to check out Main Hall and ran into the guys from Harvey Danger packing up after what was apparently a good set. We chatted for a bit and they were really nice guys. Talked about touring and the weirdness of festivals everywhere.

Our last stop was the Film Pop Opening Party at Boa which was completely dead. It would have been a nice spot to sit and have a few drinks with friends at the beginning of the night, but a party it was not. Good low-key gathering though.

We split up after the “party” and I went home to finish my essay on John Ruskin and Williams Wordsworth which was due in about 7 hours. At 4, I crashed and woke up at 8, gave it an edit and ran to school to pass the thing in. Whew.