This concert came at the end of what was, for me, a very action-packed 24 hour span. Exhausted from the Thursday show the night before, I went to an early morning job orientation. Then, immediately after the orientation, we hit the road to London, destination: Call the Office. We arrived fashionably late (because apparently fashion’s my thing) and caught most of the Meligrove Band set. They gave off a Hot Hot Heat sound, with an obvious Mars Volta influence. And I mean that in the best way possible, because I found myself moving to the beat. The singer could actually sing, a feature that I find to be a rarity nowadays. He resembled Cedric Bixler (in both looks and vocals), but I was willing to look past that. Most notable was Meligrove’s performance of “Our Love Will Make the World Go Round” which the entire crowd got into, singing the chorus over and over again in a call-and-respond fashion. Very cool.

Meligrove Band finished and we checked out the merchandise. Unfortunately, I had forgotten to exchange my American money from the night before, so I held onto my cash and just window-shopped. Moneen had some sweet shirts and hoodies, as usual. We ended up hanging out by the merch table with moneen’s tech guy, Harris. He showed us his mirrored guitar, and imitated a crazy guitar solo that, unbeknownst to us, would actually happen later in the evening. But not yet!

The next band up was The Junction, who I remember seeing a few years ago in Windsor. This time around, however, there was one less guy and they weren’t all in yellow jumpsuits. Nevertheless they played a solid set, getting everyone’s groove on with their dance-y melodies. But I must admit, my A.D.D. sidetracked me from the band’s set to the television in the bar which had the Ottawa game on, and while everyone else was jumping up and down to the music I was jumping up and down because Ottawa had just won. (But since they are now out I shall shamelessly say, GO OILERS!)

We found a good spot near the stage while moneen set up, and we watched Harris reflect light off of his sweet guitar into people’s faces. But once the band began we were overwhelmed by the mass of screaming drunk people (no booze for me, I had to drive home that night) so we moved back a bit. Moneen opened with a few old songs, starting furiously with “Start Angry, End Mad”. They got into their newer stuff as their set wore on, but before I name off a few songs I need to explain that moneen doesn’t know how to name a song in under ten words (think Sufjan Stevens).

Fortunately for me, moneen played all the new songs that I hadn’t skipped through when perusing their latest album, The Red Tree . Upon further listening, it’s all pretty good, but they ran through “Don’t Ever Tell Locke What He Can’t Do”, “The Frightening Reality Of The Fact That We Will All Have To Grow Up And Settle Down One Day”, “If Tragedy’s Appealing, Then Disaster’s An Addiction”, and, of course, their third version of “Bleed and Blister”. It strikes me as odd that a band would continually rewrite the same song over and over again, but it seems to work for them.

Vocalist/guitarist Kenny Bridges explained that the band has a full-time keyboard player, who just happens to also be their tech guy, Harris. He was hidden offstage on the floor during the performance, though, because apparently they didn’t want him to attract too much attention. Moneen played one song for the encore, “The Passing of America”, and somehow stretched it into an epic 15-minute effort. In the middle of the song Harris ran on stage with his metallic guitar and broke out into an amazing solo that got the entire crowd screaming. Despite moneen’s best efforts, Harris still stole the show.

We had plans to chill with their hippie guitarist Chris Hughes after the show, but it was getting late and I still had to drive back home, so ended up passing on that. (I also had work in the morning, god damn it. The orientation went good. A little TOO good.)

In closing, go Oilers.

-Joseph Scalia