Montreal Show Review Redux

Upon my return in mid-August, it became apparent that there were a lot of upcoming club gigs which featured all kinds of indie-set buzz bands. I was starting to get excited being able to see a lot of exciting live music that was all within walking distance of my downtown apartment. After having missed a couple of shows I said I was going to check out, I finally went to check out Brendan Benson playing at Main Hall on St. Laurent. I think it was a Monday night.

I had no clue what to expect….I had never seen a real club show in Montreal – my own hometown. That’s a topic for another blog. I arrived, and found out that I had an hour to kill before the OPENERS went on. Sheesh. Anyway, the openers were a local act called “The Ideal Lovers”. They were right up my alley, as they had a Wilco-type style, emoting a lot of blue-eyed country-ish soul. If you don’t know what that means, pickup Wilco’s double-LP “Being There”. No guarantees, but you should get the idea of what I am talking about. They played a couple of covers, and had about six solid originals, and were just plain enjoyable.

By the time Brendan Benson and his band marched onstage, there were a grand total of fifty people in the crowd. This is a guy who is on a major label. His crowds SHOULD be bigger than this. The guy is in a newly-formed band with Jack Black of the White Stripes – doesn’t this city KNOW that??? Anyway, Brendan saw there was a pretty lame crowd, proceeded to run the his catalogue and the motions all at once, and took off without even any pretense that he and the band were going to give the forty diehard or so fans who stuck around until the bitter end an encore. Not impressive for a guy who sounds like any pop-rock act out there. C’mon Brendan – build some bonds with the faaans, man. Kiss our ass just a little bit. Make us feel special, like we know some sort of secret that everyone else doesn’t. Show a little love to those who came out on a Monday – the night of the week where no one has ANYTHING to do. You’re clearly no household name, and can’t afford to come off like someone who’s too cool for school.

Next up, I checked out Jason Collette and Apostle of Hustle at Pop Montreal. This festival is a week long, has around 300 bands, is the buzz of the city, and yet I was only able to drag myself to see one “spectacle”, the Arts-and-Crafts showcase. In fairness to myself, I selected to go see this show over two others taking place at the same time: Black Mountain and labelmates Stars. I had seen the Apostle earlier in the year, as detailed in a prior blog. However, I had never seen Jason Collett, and had recently purchased his latest CD. I had always liked what I had heard from this guy. I figured that if I don’t like his act, the Apostle was a good safety net for the evening. None of the other bills had bands or acts I wanted to check out. It was an alright showing by Collett, but the Apostle chose to do the evening acoustic, and “sans-band” - which sucked.

Lastly, in mid-October, I went to see the kind of act I used to exclusively see – the jam band. Well, I don’t know if I would call Victor Wooten a “jam band”. He’s the bassist for Bela Fleck, who smelly hippies everywhere go bonkers over; so therefore, he’s a jam band guy by association (at the very least). If you’re into bass-wankery, surrounded by a fantastically talented backing band who know how to funk it up, rock it out, and make your head spin a bit, these are the guys for you. One of the cooler things about Victor’s band, is that his brothers play guitar and keys alongside him. These sibs are in addition to fellow Flecktone Futureman. That must have been one bitchin’ household growing up. I wonder if their parents used to yell at them for not bringin’ enough funk to the dinner table. So that’s a bit about what I’ve seen and smelt so far. Stay tuned for more of my inane ramblings...