Owen Pallett Plays for Canada (Day)

It seemed a rather small gathering of fans at the Owen Pallett's feet for his free Canada Day show in Confederation Park, Ottawa but meant that I could scramble up close for one of my all-time favourite performers. As always he took the stage with modesty, removed his boots to properly work the looping pedals and launched into it. I've babbled on about how he recreates songs in the most fantastic ways before so I'll skip to the new aspects of this show.For the first time Owen is regularly featuring a second musician on stage this year and after a few solo songs this man came out without prompting (later introduced as Thomas Gill). Mostly he picked up some guitar chords, though he'd also add neat percussion with a couple drums and padded sticks. There were new songs from the critically acclaimed Heartland including Lewis Takes Action and Flare Gun but the Final Fantasy classics (before the name-change) still went down just as beautifully as before. A prime example was He Poos Clouds which saw limited looping exchanged for loads of sweet violin playing, as well as a spot-on version of The CN Tower Belongs to the Dead.
Nearing the end of the set I broke my trance to realize just how many people had been pulled from their resting spots in the grass to take in the spectacle from up close. The hour+ set flew by, helped by enthralling songs such as The Butcher that drew silence from the outdoor festival crowd. Saved until last was Lewis Takes Off His Shirt, the song that still makes my hair stand on end as it brings me back to the spectacularly stormy performance at last year's Hillside.
Yet that wasn't enough and we demanded Owen play us another Song Song Song before a finale of This Lamb Sells Condos that had Thomas, and some of the crowd, whistling the violin parts. Owen never disappoints!

My video of his second song, which was a version of This is the Dream but I'm not sure it was "of Win and Regine" as the chorus lyrics do not say "Montreal might eat its young" but something else.. perhaps Ottawa?