My club-hopping plans for last night got stymied for all the right reasons, as I sat in a roomful of people who were baffled and riveted by an inspiring performance by the legendary Mary Margaret O'Hara (pictured above). More on this later, but first a full wrap-up on my enjoyable, easy-going Saturday at the 9th edition of Pop Montreal.
I arrived at the Pop BBQ to the peppy sound of Hot Panda winning over an enthused crowd, and walked into the warmth of many good, old pals. That's always the nice thing about travelling to different cities for festivals in Canada; invariably you gather together with friends you haven't seen in forever, even if you reside an hour away from each other the rest of the year. So that was fun, and bolstered by charming, loose, open air performances by Dr. Ew, Maylee Todd, More or Les, and the Out of This Spark family band, featuring members of Forest City Lovers, the D'Urbervilles, and Evening Hymns, who had a time with covers by George Harrison, Green Day, and Tom Petty. Tune into the Wrath of Khanna on Tuesday from 7-10 AM EST to hear my occasionally chaotic Pop BBQ interviews with Stuart Duncan of OOTS, Maria Bui of Fuzzy Logic Recordings, More or Les, and members of Timber Timbre, Snailhouse, Forest City Lovers, and Tasseomancy.
I was literally chilling at the BBQ and decided to try and track down a toque and mitts before I spent the night biking around in the surprisingly cool Montreal evening. It took a while since everything seemed to close at 5:00 PM or something but I finally hit a very small amount of paydirt at a dollar store and man, it made for a pleasant night. Good call Vish! After a hasty dinner (bagels!), I rushed over to Little Bird on Van Horne to catch the Luyas perform their "Everything Outta Sight" art installation piece and they sounded amazing. But, I really couldn't see anything. Maybe that was the point. Mike Feuerstack of Snailhouse (who's playing an in-store at Phonopolis today at 3 PM) and I then bounded over to the Cabaret du Mile End for the Mary Margaret O'Hara show and, after arguing with the door people about their stupid mandatory coat check rule, I enjoyed a nice, if unpracticed set by Montreal's Howl.
My plans for the night included attending quite a few shows but a remarkable two hour performance by Mary Margaret O'Hara kiboshed all that. The gifted singer with a teasingly playful voice has been a reclusive artist for the past couple decades and her set was hilarious, heartbreaking, and ingenious. Full of improv and gracefully flighty banter and phrasing, O'Hara was entertainment personified. Having never seen her before, I dunno how much she was channeling her sister per se, but, as my colleague Michael Barclay remarked, there was a definite SCTV vibe to the whole affair. Hopefully we all get to see the likes of it again sooner rather than later.
That ended my night at about 1:30 AM and I opted outta the worst-kept-secret-show-in-the-world and assumed Deerhoof destroyed again. I went back to my hotel to rest up for the all-day Master Class at Hotel2Tango with legendary producer John Simon (The Band, Simon & Garfunkel, Leonard Cohen, and more) that's happening...now! Gotta go!
Anyone out there have any Pop Montreal reflections to share? Post forth...