The opening band was “Paper Tongues” and they were pretty hype, almost a hip hop rock band.  They were actually really loud, I would say louder than Switchfoot.

The Switchfoot portion of the night was also pretty epic.  They played through their new CD “Hello Hurricane” in entirety, and then played through some old material.  I realized that my ears weren’t fuzzing out because of the sound mix necessarily (the cymbals were a tad loud maybe) but rather from the cheering of the crowd.  It was a small venue (Just Pour Rire Montreal) and so it wasn’t hard to fill that place with volume.

The new CD is really quite epic on its own.  The songs aren’t too complicated, but the words are jam packed with passion and every instrument had marvellous tone.  And they are very singable, despite being in the very top of Jon Foreman’s vocal range.  There was a dude in front of me who sang almost every one of the new songs.  Somehow, Switchfoot is able to take a crowd (consisting of many macho guys actually) and lead them in singing songs of desperation, hope, and reflection.  This is still pretty unheard of; there aren’t many huge bands out there that succeed in putting out reflective material.

I’ll be buying this CD and pumping it really loud in the car, and trying to hit every note with them.