Ah yes, a nice, low-key night at the Media Club. Typical to Vancouver, the room was pretty sparse at the outset (I was there just before 9:30pm), and Ryan McMahon was already partway through a set that consisted of himself on an acoustic guitar, and his two guitarists left over from The Dirty Five band McMahon fronts(fronted), Mike Rogerson and Dustin Young. McMahon is a versatile performer undoubtedly, with a voice that is at once touching and powerful. He doesn't really look like he should be able to let loose with quite that much punch, but he does. The voice has a stranglehold on the room. He played a few tumultuous songs from his repertoire, and then left the stage to make way for Toronto's Meligrove Band.

Points for interesting merchandise for these guys - it looks like, in addition to some standard t-shirt and tank top fare, they had raided a thrift shop or two for some interesting shirts to toss their snazzy raptor graphic onto. This here writer picked up no less than two shirts, and I am looooving them.

All right, now, the theme of the night was 'moustaches' - and at this point may I also mention I need to get a clipboard or something because my practice of writing down point form show notes on tiny gig flyers on my thigh is really not very effective. I'll do the best I can. If I misquote anyone, please don't shoot me. Anyhow, while everyone in the band proved pretty damn humourous, it was moustachioed drummer Darcy Rego who carried much of the hilarity. He grew his sub-nose decoration, so he claims, as a result of peer pressure from tourmates Matthew Barber & The Union Dues. Oh, those poor, rubber-armed drummers. They did in fact call this the Moustache Tour, and I think they said something about having added moustaches to some show posters in that regard. Not to mention, their poor van broke down twice on the tour. Not that that has anything to do with moustaches.... but it might.

One thing I wasn't expecting was guitarist Andrew Scott (who also took care of key duties) suddenly grabbing up a trumpet for a few bits of the show. Performance-wise, the band was extraordinarily engaging, from their adept handling of the oft-wonky sound in the room, to their I-mean-it-dammit foot-stomping, ground-falling wailing. Some point later in the set, the band capped to a quick stop in mid-song, which gave Rego the latitude to end off his vocals with a drawn-out "moustaaaaaaaaaaaaache." He was dead-pan. So was the rest of the band as they stood silently and motionless waiting to kick into the song outro... but it wasn't easy for them. Bassist Mike Small was closing his eyes to try and calm himself down, but you could see they were all ready to burst into fits of the giggles. They all came through unscathed except for singer Jason Nunes, who collapsed into laughter for a few seconds before regaining his composure and taking the song to its conclusion.

Just a point - I should have explored this further, but there was a small stuffed fox on one of the amps on stage. ?? (see above photo, far right)

Anyways, the set was evidently a combination of songs from their forthcoming Planets Conspire disc, as well as some of their established material. I would later recognize a few of the songs from the Planets Conspire disc, but at the time, all the tunes were brand new to me. Through all of it, there were shouts from everyone on stage, whoops, dancing incited in the room, and general mayhem. Just before playing their last song or two, we were back onto the moustache topic - somehow this related to a tale about the moustache causing some Valhalla eagle to rise up soaring ten feet in front of the van.... Scott was telling this story in some awe, and from somewhere else on stage came a ventriloquist-style "Hello, Meligrove Band!" in what I assume was supposed to be the voice of an eagle. I'm not even sure who said it. But it was damn funny. Rego continued by saying the moustache has secret powers, and everyone better stay away. Scott dryly added, "Don't worry, they are. There's no one within five feet of the stage." Rego finished that off by explaining he made a squirrel fall off a fence once, so powerful was his moustache.

The show finale was incredible because... they destroyed shit. That always makes for a great show ending. Nunes was squalling away feverishly, flinging his body and guitar around and knocking over his microphone stand, and Rego picked up a cymbal and used it to smash the crap out of the rest of his kit. Spec-darn-tacular.

Well that was it for that.

Matthew Barber & the Union Dues was on then. A completely new Union Dues than I've ever seen before. The new version is all lanky and yes, moustachioed. Incredible. Barber himself was sporting an entertaining hat, that he explained he got in Saskatoon and just loves too much. But he only wore it for a couple of songs because it's a darn warm hat. He played a lot of songs from his earlier "The Story Of Your Life" EP, and the rest was mainly catalogued from his new "Sweet Nothing" full length. A jivey cat, his songs tend to feel a lot more gently-acoustic in nature than they actually are - I suppose "sweet' is a good term to describe him. He never sounds jilted or angry about anything, even though many of his themes are bittersweet. And live, he maintains that easy-going aesthetic - he's genuine, but soft. I like his new band too - good bunch of dudes.

There we go, another cozy night at the Media Club. The Meligrove Band played again the next night (despite Nunes being somewhat under the weather) for the Media Club's Rock N' Roll Circus night, to a room that seemed to be more waiting for the DJs to get going. That was an interesting night though - even though they didn't go on until after 11, the room was still mostly emptied, but the band's ever-spirited performance drew the midweek partiers towards the front speculatively. They played a similar set to the night before, albeit with less focus on the 'stache action, and without the end-of-set stage destruction. And after cutting a rug for a while with the suddenly-active Nunes and Rego (who never actually really stopped), while poor Small was left to man the merch booth most of the night, and Scott was difficult to find except for when he was tiling his band's posters across the back wall... suddenly part of the Alexisonfire and The Used crews showed up (they'd be playing a show in town the following night), and we ended up with a sort-of Alexisonfire mini-set by close to 2am. Shucks, what a Wednesday! By this time I'd had far too much beer and began the journey home... but make no mistake - the Meligrove Band is one to keep an eye out for!

Elsewhere

By Andy Scheffler
Photos : Andy Scheffler
Published : September, 2005.