ahh 2006, the top of the pops, i remember it as if it were yesterday

I recall it was after Spank Rocks performace, me and my girls rendevued at a near by house party with spank and his crew. We were quite giddy: partially because it had came about so fast and b) we were young teenage girls experimenting with extacy.

It had commenced innocently enough I suppose, Spank performed an exclusive after party show and me and my ladies were shaking our tail feathers like one quickly forgotten Murphy Lee song, However it was Murphy's Law which was soon to take it's toll.

We began snorting our share of prescription pills with a credit card and a bus pass off the house owners toilet seat (yuk).

This was not something i had done before, I panicked and ran outsiddeeeee offffff theeeee hooouuusseeeeee........

I BEGAN HALLUCIATING! i felt as though each step my feet sunk into the pavement of the street as though it were sucking me in like quicksand, i screamed

IM DROWNINGG!!!!!!

Spank Rock came outside and offered me a ride home , reluctantly I got in the car, soon Ihis face started changing,,,I wanted out ofthe car but he just said NO! So in a fit of rage i grabbed the steering wheel which caused the car to swerve off the side of the road. Luckily we hit guard rail of some sort,

I remember him screamign and leaving me on the side of the road, I stood and looked down and seen two pieces of ply-wood, perhaps from the rail we'd just hit, one was longer than the other. I lifted them, and in a spur of the moment, chemically influenced decision, wore these two pieces on my back like a cross while hanging my arms over to support the wood.

Walking down this highway cars began to honk in disgust and shock, but soon one car pulled over and allowed me to get in the vehicle with them.

"Are you going to bring your cross?" he asked

"No I replied" and left it there on the roadside,

Once I ented the vehicle I noticed a christian airfreshner, bearing a psalm from the Bible on it, I slowly noticed many other little church/jesus related trinkets. I soon found out I'd been picked up by a mitionary whos mission it was to save those who are gods children.

Throughout our discussion I found that HE TOO WAS ATTENDING THE POP MONTREAL FESTIVAL. needless to say the strangest, embarassing and most scary night of my life. He dropped me off at my hotel and i did not sleep.

I enjoyed the rest of POP MONTREAL, however... :(

i was not very happy to find out later that I had gotten Herpes on the inside of my left nostril. I guess the toilet seat we'd used to snort our lines belonged to someone with the disease and well..you know

BUT...I am loyal the POPMONTREAL festival and would love to re-attend, just this time i will be a littlemore careful ;)

My most harrowing Pop Montreal experience? Well there was that time I got into an intense Sergio Leone style stare down with a bearded bespectacled puma aficionado in front of the Divan Orange because I brushed up against his expensive though none-the-less ugly sneakers. Then there was the time I had to run across the Mile End (which betrays its name by being far longer than a mile) to get to an Islands show only to find out it was behind schedule and I could have taken a leisurely stroll down Park-Avenue instead of a beer-fueled Olympian dash. And I could never forget going with a date to see Devin the Dude. I enjoyed the show tremendously but it turns out the object of my affections was really more of the Sage Francis type. Ouch.

But none of those moments compare to the cursed night where I ran face to face with dreaded Time Pope.

Waitaminute…what in John-Blazes is a Time Pope?

Well, he has nothing to do with Catholicism for one thing. All I know is that he sits on a throne in a huge room filled with golden light and watches…errr…time. But he’s very scary about it and…well maybe I should start from the beginning.

It was October 2007 and a friend and I had decided to go see Pop Levi’s live show at one of the many fine venues littering St-Laurent. I had randomly stumbled on the guy’s music a few months earlier and was hyped to see how his whole electronica-based-glam-revival would play out on stage. Plus I had nothing better to do and the tickets were reasonably priced. Now my usual concert preparation is rather tame: a few beers, maybe half a joint and I’m good for the night. Far from being the guy getting himself kicked out of a show, I usually play the wall or (if the mood is right) flail around the dance floor like a most peculiar marine animal suddenly thrown out of its natural habitat and performing a new step called “where the oxygen at?”. But there would be none of that tonight: no drinking and certainly no flailing. Instead, seeing as the Liverpudlian’s music was vaguely psychedelic I decided to make use of a 3 month old bag of mushrooms passed on to me by a friend who had suddenly skipped town for a 6 month long Indian escape.

Now, the thing about 3 month old bags of shrooms passed on through about 20 people is that it’s difficult to certify their origins whether or not they were tampered with along the way. I wasn’t worried about it at the time, but I certainly would have been if I knew they’d cause me to go face-to-face with the angriest Temporal-religious leader this side of the the Clock-devil.

Ironically enough, this could have all been avoided if I had been timelier, which in Montreal terms means “had I showed up a few hours late”. Naively taking said Mushrooms at 8:00 an hour before the doors to the Green Room opened, I forgot to take into account the innumerable opening acts that would grace the “stage” (more on that later) before Pop Levi did his thing. So as I walked up Laurier from my Residence towards the Ubi Soft building, I didn’t realize that there would be no “Skip Ghetto” for several hours. On the plus side, the walk was tremendously entertaining: all flashing lights, a colorful shapes and what not. The friend who was accompanying me to the show was somewhat miffed at his state of sobriety but fuck it, spontaneous fungi consumption doesn’t lend itself to adequate supply management. In other words I had nothing for him.

Problems began to occur when we arrived at the venue: it was empty. In my current state of mind, this was a dramatic problem, one that was exacerbated as I became increasingly paranoid. A darkened room with minimal music playing was not the proper atmosphere for my current mind state, so was hastily got our wrists stamped and retreated to the open safety of the street. Now for some reason, my friend was singing a dorky country song that night: we were starting to look like Jon Voight and Dustin Hoffman in Midnight Cowboy what with my mumbling and staring and the ground Rizzo Ratso like and his “garsh-shucks” yodeling. It was at this point that I met the Time Pope.

He was sitting down, staring into the void, focusing at me and I could clearly make out his shape through the cracks in the city’s potholed concrete. Threatening me, he began ranting about time, space and everything collapsing on itself which thoroughly freaked me out. Even in my dilapidated state, I knew that I’d disturbed something that did NOT want to be disturbed. Ruby red eyes flashed, fire came out of nostrils and epic Hanz-Zimmer inspired choirs sang menacing themes from rejected movie scripts. I tried to explain all of this to my friend but he was getting more than slightly annoyed at my delusions and dragged me back inside the Green Room in an attempt to knock some sense back into me.

This was the final nail in the coffin, as the room was now full of figures dashing in and out of shadows. My paranoia had hit its apex and I could see assassins lurking and darting in and out of the gloom like a bad Wu-Tang Clan video. As I huddled in a corner staring at this strange scene and demanding to be returned to the comforts of home and sanity, one of the opening acts began to perform…in the middle of the room. Whatever happened to a clearly defined stage area? Now, I was assured by many sober and objective people in attendance that night (most of whom I didn’t bump into thankfully) that this was a terrible example of experimental dance/theater/spoken word, no matter what substances you were on.

But I’ll tell you something, it was a hell of a lot worse given the substances I was on. Particularly when I stared into the performers eyes and saw the same face as I had on the Time Pope!

The combination of weird electronic bloops, a dancing Time Pope with a microphone demanding crowd participation and the hallucinogenics proved too much as I ran out with the quickness and didn’t stop until I’d reached the safety of my apartment. Thankfully, the delirium subsided soon after though I couldn’t properly piece everything together until the next day. My friend (who’d managed to get past the opening acts) said that Pop Levi was quite entertaining and he was totally baffled at why I’d had been so terrified and ran out. I still don’t have a good answer for him.

And so goes the tale of my epic battle with destiny. Ironically, I still haven’t been back to the Green Room: I was supposed to see the Apples in Stereo there last winter but they canceled at the last minute. So yeah. I don’t know if this story warrants a free pass: I mean, everything that happened is no one’s fault but my own. But I really could use the pass: see, I’m saving up for a trip to Thailand this winter and I hear they have some wicked plant life there…

Although I have quite a few Pop Montreal stories, my favourite stems from my first Pop Montreal, in 2005, on the first official night when Beck played the Bell Centre.

 At the time, I lived back at my parents place in Blainville, about 30 minute drive from Montreal, however, I had no driver's license, so the plan for the festival was to go to as many shows as possible, stay up until 6 or 7am at some 24hr cafe or establishment and take the first bus back home to sleep during the day and do it all over again.

The first night came along, and I had plans to take it easy so I could have the energy to see a bunch more shows the following nights, so I thought I'd go check out Beck, and then catch a late bus home. I arrived early enough to get a ticket on the Bell Centre floor, thanks to my trusty Pop pass, and was able to get to the front of the stage. Alas, none of my buddies wanted to tag along, so I was there alone until two strangers came up to me and asked me what was that thing around my neck.

I proceeded to explain it was my Pop Montreal pass, thinking only two things, I either look like a real loser, or some guy with great connections. We introduced ourselves throughout the night, and little did I know I would be forever grateful to Steve, and Lisa.  I explained what the pass was all about, talked about the festival, and we discussed musical acts until the show began. They were both students at McGill, both from out of town, PEI, I believe.

As the night went on, we made arrangements to go out for a drink afterwards. So, we headed on over to Brutopia, had a few pints, and as the night went on, I explained my situation, how I lived quite a ways away and that I planned to stay up until the early hours of the morning to catch the first bus back home. After meeting me just a couple of hours earlier, Lisa simply offered for me to crash at her place. I was immensely grateful, and kindly accepted.

After Brutopia, we walked all the way to the Plateau, stopping only to publicly urinate, guys and girls, and for cheap 2$ chow mein on St-Laurent. We arrived at her place, where Steve went in to get his bike and head on home, and Lisa invited me in and gave me a spot on a tiny couch in the living room. I barely slept that night, but it was more welcome than staying up all night. The next day, I woke up, spoke with her, and met two of her three roommates. I was even more surprised to find one beautiful girl after another living in that cosy apartment on St-Denis. It was like a surreal dream. Alas, I left that day, leaving my phone number in case she ever wanted to check out another show, thanking her relentlessly, and offering to repay her somehow, to which she only replied to pay it forward...yes, like the cheesy Kevin Spacey movie. I left that day, and never heard from her or saw her again. It was...bittersweet, and a night and morning I will never forget. My first night, my initiation into Pop Montreal.

 Thanks Again Lisa,

Jonathan

It was a night I would remember for many reasons. Unlike many stories that will be posted for this contest, this experience revolved around being unable to go to the Pop Montreal Festival. It was the night that Islands and Miracle Fortress were to play together. I had not been immersed into the Montreal music scene at that point, and I had no idea of the connection between Miracle Fortress and Think About Life. Although, I had been introduced to Think About Life's kick-ass-electro-rock at Osheaga, and was immediately taken by it. I was also a huge Unicorns fan, and I had been listening to the Islands record constantly.

The plan was to meet up with Noah, a kid who I only knew because his school locker was parallel to mine. I was unable to find anyone to go to the show with, so I asked around and it turned out he was a big Islands fan too. We planned to meet each other in front of the venue before the start of the Islands set. Keep in mind that I had no idea whom Miracle Fortress was, or I would have never skipped his act. So, we all found each other as planned, with the exception that Noah had brought some friends along with him. Taking our places in line, we saw the bouncer do something unexpected. He was asking the people ahead of us for some ID. Looking at each other, we all immediately realized that we were fucked. Aside from myself, everyone was around 5'4, brace-faced and innocent looking. Trying our best to put on big boy faces, we faced the bouncer and he took one look at us and asked to see some identification. We were sent packing. Standing outside the venue, we began to hear music being played. Looking around for another way to get in; we watched the bouncer from a distance, and found out (I forget how) that he was about to change shifts. Just as that information hit us, I saw someone who looked familiar leaning against the wall near the entrance doors. "It was that red headed dude from Think About Life!” I remember thinking to myself. Daringly, I went up to him and gathered up the courage to ask him if he could help us out. As I approached him, an orange tour van pulled up and some of the passengers began to call for him to get in. He traded looks between the van and me, and told me to “hold tight.” He went inside to talk to the bouncer, saying "Hey, these kids are helping me carry gear into the truck, let them in!" The bouncer looked at us and immediately began to spew out some bullshit story about us needing to be on the list. Our red headed friend came back to us with a disappointed look on his face. He did what he could, but no luck. Apologetically, he waved goodbye to us and headed into the van. We made one last attempt to get in, but it was hopeless at that point. We spent the rest of night - Noah, Corey, and myself (Lukas) wandering the streets of The Plateau reminiscing of what had just happened. We talked of how kind and down-to-earth Graham was. Later that night, we all decided on going to the Think About Life concert that was happening the next day.

The next night we found ourselves in a similar situation. Waiting in line, we saw Graham eating at the downstairs restaurant, and I waved to him and jokingly said, "See you inside!" "For Sure!” he said waving back to us. As I made my way to the door, an overwhelming sense of dread came over me. When we entered the venue, which was already jam-packed, the ticket guy welcomed us and stamped our quivering hands. Relieved that the bad luck hadn’t carried over to the next night, we congratulated ourselves. We were in! Soon after, Think About Life took the stage and the crowd went nuts. We managed to position ourselves in the very front; to the dislike of some of the shorter fans (I can't help it if I'm 6'1!).

After tuning up and doing some final preparations before they began to play the first song, Graham spoke into the microphone and said, "Hey everybody, we're Think About Life and this song is dedicated to a couple of 14 year-old kids who couldn't get into the Islands show last night, because of some asshole bouncer!" It was truly awesome thing to do, and we were all stunned.

That night, I saw Think About Life play the best show I've ever seen them perform. At the end of the night I remember being so impressed that I went to the only familiar face in the crowd, who was Dan from Alien8 records, and said in a rushed and excited voice, "I was one of the kids he dedicated the song to!" I was psyched, we all were. The whole experience immediately made us the best of friends, and into the formidable concert-going-tag team that we are today.

That was my Pop Montreal experience, and it may be kind of cheesy; but I'll never forget it.