The eighth annual Pop Montreal festival is in full swing, and we’re already wishing we’d got to town earlier to catch some of the day one highlights on Wednesday night.
Nevertheless, even with a late start there’s tons of exciting acts still coming up over the next few days, and there’s a palpable buzz in the clubs.
Stopped by the Blocks showcase Thursday night at Casa Del Popolo to see how some of the Toronto contingent were faring, and immediately ran into Little Girls‘ Josh McIntyre (who’d apparently had the same urge).
Toronto’s Hank took the stage shortly, doing their angular weirdo-pop thing. The quirky idiosyncratic songs have a certain charm, but the off-key singing started to wear thin after a few tunes.Also not completely sold on the occasionally goofy lyrics, but the band does have moments when everything gels together in a pleasing surrealist punk pop way.
Ran across the street to Sala Rossa to catch Montreal space-garage band Red Mass still setting up. After what felt like an epic sound check, they finally launched into a short set of trashy primitive rock and roll, augmented with electronic effects and dubbed out echoes. The band has a large rotating cast of musicians, and unfortunately this wasn’t the best lineup we’ve seen them play with. However, they still managed to impress us – after all, how many garage punk bands can boast sizzling clarinet solos?
A quick walk down the street brought us to Balattou, where Sister Suvi were about to take the stage. Augmenting the usual drums and guitars with amplified Ukelele, the trio borrow melodic and rhythmic elements from African pop, but manage to avoid sounding anything like Vampire Weekend (not that there’s anything wrong with that). Unfortunately, this was their last show ever (we presume that Patrick Gregoire is too tied up with Islands these days to continue with this band), which led to some onstage tears and a passionate performance. Impressive enough that we’re going to try to catch Merrill Garbus’ side project tUnE-yArDs.[rssbreak]
