Liam Finn avec The Veils et Dirty on Purpose 5 Auot 2008

It felt like a bit of a dream really.

We had been planning on seeing Liam Finn play in Wellington at Bodega just before we left. It was to be our last taste of Kiwi music before departing the land of the long white cloud. But alas, being the unorganised monkey bums that we are, we planned this night without actually purchasing tickets. And so we missed out.

So you could imagine our joy and excitement when Sam (with his keen eye) spotted a poster advertising the final act of this years Pop Montreal Festival.

We bought tickets almost straight away, knowing that in the month or two leading up to it we would only be getting stingier and more frugal. There was no way we were going to miss this taste of home, especially as we were on the farm at the time, and possibly the most homesick we had ever been.

So we had a lot of self inflicted build up for the night. it had to be pretty rocking to live up to our expectations. And it did.

Being as we are always so punctual (and also due to the lack of friends to go and have drinks with prior to the thing starting) we were there only about 30 mins after doors opening. We spent a bit of time just milling and messing up perfectly normal social interactions with our over excited-ness, lack of cooldom and lack of french.

Opening: The Veils. They were pretty rockin’ cool and reminded me alot of the Sons of Midus, who we saw on the boat down south. They had a kind of folk kick that i don’t really know how to classify. I never really enjoyed the whole classing of music into genres thang, all the best bands are usually non classifiable anyhow. But they got the crowd going, as the opening band should, and got us interested enough to try and find out what else they have done. We came THIS close to buying the album at the end of the night but we changed our minds at the last minute, and got the Liam Finn T-shirt instead.

Next on were Dirty on Purpose. I wonder if they might have mistaken the word dirty for the word crap. I know its harsh and kudos to them for being on stage and performing and having fun . They also get merit for having the drummer be their lead singer. That’s cool. But the music was too loud and messy and most of the time you couldn’t hear the vocals (or anything else actually) over the roaring distorted mess of the guy on guitar. Sign 1 of a bad band, tring to spot their play list on the floor so that you can count down how many songs you have left to suffer through.

Then there was Liam. and it turns out is is so much easier to write nasty things about  a band than nice things. I see why so many critics only ever criticize, its so easy. Liam was great and i want to merit it by writing loads on how musically talented he is, I want to be snappy and witty and talk of great things, but all i can really say is he was great. and i enjoyed every moment.

After it had finished, we just stood for a bit.

Then we went and got our T-shirt and then we went and asked him to sign it and had a wee conversation with him about being from NZ and how he has been thinking of moving to Montreal…. and then some super mental “fan” came along “oh no liam we have already met, we met in boston, I love you, marry me and have babies with me ARGHHHHHH”

So we left and walked home. And I had the best damned nights sleep on my awesome bed.