I’m About To Pop

It’s that time of year again folks. No i’m not talking about Christmas (although I kinda wish I was) but the annual Pop Montreal Festival that takes place all over this great city of mine. Just take a look at the list of names above. All i can think is that there is one notable emmission. Where is Sufjan? If he’s on that list I am blind. So anyways, I’m basically just trying to plan out which shows to see. It’s a little bit tough since they all play at the same time but here is my tentative schedule:

Wensday, September 30th:

The Phenomenal Handclap Band – 8:00 – Le National

Amy Millan – 10:00 – Ukrainian Federation

Elephant Stone – 11:00 – O Patro Vys

Matt & Kim – 12:00 – Club Lambi

Jay Reatard – 12:30 – La Sala Rossa (if I can make it)

Thursday, October 1st:

Habs vs. Leafs – 7:00 – Air Canada Center (In Toronto)

Friday, October 2nd:

Tune Yards – 7:00 – Musee D’art Contomporain (maybe)

Ghost Bees – 8:00 – Ukrainian Federation

Cryptacize  – 8:45 – Cabaret

Sufjan Stevens – 9:45 – Cabaret

Hexes & Ohs – 10:40 – Il Motore

The Do – 11:30 – Theatre Plaza

Shapes & Sizes – 12:00 – O Patro Vys (if I can make it)

Saturday, October 3rd:

Jarusalem In My Heart – 9:00 – Theatre Outremont

Les Momies De Palerme – 10:00 – Barfly

Forest City Lovers – 11:00 – Casa Del Popolo

Os Mutantes – 11:30 – Le National

Fresh and Only’s – 12:00 – La Sala Rossa

The Oh Sees – 1:00 – La Sala Rossa

or (they’re right across the street so it’ll be a game time decision)

The D’Urbervilles – 1:00 – Casa Del Popolo

Sunday, October 4th:

I’m not really sure what to see since I’m not really familiar with any of the bands playing on Sunday so if anyone has any suggestions please feel free to let me know. I was thinking about these two:

Nadia & The Tchotchkes – 9:00 – Green Room

Arianne Moffat – 10:00 – Ukrainian Federation

White Pine Waltz – 10:00 – Casa Del Popolo

For updates on what’s going on check my twitter page as I will most likely be posting stuff on there while I’m at the shows.

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Sufjan Stevens is Playing Pop Montreal…(UPDATED)

Just saying… 🙂

UPDATE:

The show will be on Friday, October 2 and label mates Cryptacize are opening.

Tickets go on sale Saturday, August 15 at 10:00 A.M and can be purchased here

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Pop Montreal Nights

Ratatat – Club Soda – 03/10/08 (Pop Montreal)

I saw Ratatat play last night at Club Soda in Montreal as a part of the Pop Montreal Festival. I’d first like to say that Club Soda is a piece of shit. Secondly, Ratatat was incredible. I was expecting it to be one of those shows that you say to yourself, “I could have just listened to the record”. But it was way more than that. They seriously rocked the house. The crowd went insane for every song, and the band seemed to feed off of them, getting really into the music themselves. They didn’t really say anything to the crowd, besides a few thank you’s, but words weren’t really necessary. They let the music speak for itself, and it did just that. They had some pretty psychotic videos going on in the background, including the great Abba mash-up they created for the song “Shempi”. The highlight for me was probably when they played my all-time favourite Ratatat song, “Montanita”, in the encore. I was a little thrown off by the crowd surfers, but whatever makes you happy I guess.

Where in the world is Laura Marling?

So I figured I could get two shows in last night, but it wasn’t meant to be. The schedule for the Johnny Flynn, Laura Marling and Mumford & Sons show on the Pop Montreal website was this:

• 21:00 Mumford and Sons
• 22:00 Laura Marling
• 23:00 Johnny Flynn

So after seeing an excellent performance by Mumford and Sons, who I haden’t heard of until last night, I was ready to see Laura Marling’s performance and then head over to Club Soda to catch Ratatat’s 11:30 PM shceduled performance. It became apparent to me that the band that was setting up to play second wasn’t Laura Marling. I asked the girl next to me if she played already and she said that she was playing last. This left me very upset, because I knew I had to leave if I wanted to catch the Ratatat show. If I haden’t already seen Marling perform once before, and if I didn’t already have my Ratatat ticket I probably would have stayed, but alas, my choice was made and I grugingly left the interesting Temple Maçonnique, and headed over to Club Soda. Hopefully I will get another chance to see Marling play again soon. And I hope to see Mumford & Sons play again too. They really impressed me.

Here is a video of Laura Marling and the lead singer of Mumford & Sons peforming a song called “Blackberry Stone”:

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