Yesterday evening while the first quarter of WL504 was being set up I sat in the Music Gallery's courtyard and watched a restless raccoon, there was a pamplet for Italian lessons in my pocket and on the ground beneath my feet I found a little pencil, so while watching the raccoon explore the bushes I wrote a poem for myself on the Italian lesson application form about how great it would be to learn Italian, and have an excuse to blow this town and relocate to a new life in the old world. Watching the ominous security fencing popping up around my workplace, tolerating the bland professional ambition of mainstream music festivals, picking between the underwhelmingly lacklustre insiders propped up to be our next mayor like sifting a dumpster for new shoes, well sometimes the city grinds me down and meeting & listening to people from far away does little to soothe the sailor soul.

Meeting good people from far away like the three members of the Dead Letters or Grouper (sorry Julia I barely met ya! But I heard a lot of good people in your music) sometimes makes me feel jealous of other cities, or I should say ALWAYS makes me jealous of other cities across the fence with their green green grass, I've got a restless soul and I've got itchy feet and it would be so exciting for me to follow bands back to where they came from, to try to soak in some of the same influences they've soaked in, to drink the same tapwater and to listen to the songs of their cities for a little while.

It was a beautiful show. Everybody brought an outside vibe inside and were scooched and sprawled all over the floor like the sun was shining on us and we were on a beach it was pretty surreal and beautiful. It was like one of those meditation workshops where a few people bliss out and nod off but the difference between that and the show last night: no snoring!

The first thing that struck me walking into the ready-for-prime-time chapel was the sworls and swooshes of General Chaos' light show smearing around the rafters, and a multicoloured twirling orb hovering over stage left, and since we had all brought the sentiment of being outside with us, it was easy to switch gears in our minds and imagine we were on a little courtyard in the centre of the galaxy watching black holes and novas.

The Dead Letters are good people it was a good night to bond with new friends under the clouds, the rain came to the courtyard from time to time but the universe timed it so that the rain really only happened during the intermissions. The Dead Letters are a truly vested band, literally, they wore vests, which from a distance gave them a mariarchi vibe. Tom M described their set as "post noise music played to a spaghetti western soundtrack", their last song was the hit.

The night moved on and General Chaos' lights stilled themselves and changed from dayglo multicoloured swirls to stark icy white light on the tanbrowned rafters, like a flurry of ice crystals around the full moon. The lights collected and settled in sympathetic vibration with the smooth soothe of Julia Kent.

Grouper's show was sublime, her last show in Toronto was at a frat party playground called Sound Academy. My best guess is the person arranging her tour mistook the Sound Academy brand for the actual Music Gallery and booked her there by mistake. So last night was a double release of om because last time around the delicate beautiful energy of her music was brutishly sucked out of the room by the dead energy of Toronto's soulless partyclub / mini golf / driving range / wet t-shirt contest partyplex formerly known as the Docks but rechristened with a suspiciously Music Gallery-esque moniker. But the pulse of energy set aside for Grouper's last Toronto appearance never went away, it just didn't have a chance to emerge last time around since you can't make horseshit taste any better with any amount of honey, so the lingering pent up beauty of her last show intertwined with the immediacy of the here and now, wove with the shimmering lights, curled lightly around Grouper, braided itself in the breathless silence of the most attentive audience I have seen in years, and finally released itself into and throughout the room, and even though the lights and the skies were darkened and dimmed, the whole chapel lit up to warm un-visible but palpable golden hue.

The first quarter of WL504 was just a fantastic experience. It was so great to see so many of the same beautiful Sunday night faces, HistoryJen was our Merch Menace, Jonny was on his home turf and on his administrative game, the chapel and courtyard were filled with the easy energy of open minds and open ears, my favorite sort of people and many of them napped to the music, blissed out under summer sunshine during a midnight shower. After the show my friend's brakes were too squeezy and squeaky after the rain, no sooner did we have to think about how wonderful it would be to have an allen key than a member of the 504 audience stopped in the rain, dug in his bag and pulled out a swiss army allen key collection.

I guess what I'm saying is it would be wonderful to stowaway in a band's tour van and see the world, but I don't want to waste too much time away, because there's no audience like the audiences who have spoiled me for so long. I always thought Toronto was a quick three year stop to pick up a B.A. and move on to Paris or London or New York, but I can't go there now unless the rest of this city packs up and moves there too. I'm listening as best I can and I still haven't heard the whole tune of this sponeaneously self-writing Toronto song yet, so I'm staying put until the song ends. Not sure if that will ever happen.

Viva Italia! Viva Toronto!