Rah-rah: Ratatat.
By Laura Mojonnier
A snapshot of the Pop Montreal festival, Oct. 3, 4, and 5.
Day 3
Ratatat and Panther at Club Soda, 10:30 p.m.
I began Friday night, Oct. 3, with the second most-hyped show of the festival: Ratatat. (First place goes to Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, who played Metropolis on Thursday night – not even my press pass could get me in.) It was sold out weeks before Pop began, but somehow Club Soda managed to not feel like the inside of a wet diaper in mid-July. So props to whoever was in charge of air circulation.
I saw opening act Panther over the summer with maybe 30 people in the room at an Oakland gallery smaller than my apartment, so naturally I assumed that seeing them six rows deep in a huge downtown venue was bound to disappoint. But the Portland, Ore., art-rock duo, composed of multi-instrumentalist Charlie Salas-Humara and drummer Joe Kelly, actually managed to pull it off, oozing enough delirious energy to fill the 800-person room.