The opening night of Music Waste provided a pleasant surprise or two. The weather was taking a turn for the angry and wet, and I dared to head to The Columbia Hotel bar with an umbrella. I arrived a bit late, and I was surprised to see that the first ensemble, The Greenbelt Collective were wrapping up their last song. I believe that there may have been more members of the band than audience members, but it wasn't due to a lack of audience; there must have been a hundred people on stage playing their warm, non-threatening music. Okay, maybe 10.

Surprise number one at any music festival I've ever been to; when something starts at the advertised time.

The Columbia
10:15 Greenbelt Collective
11:00 Organ Trail
11:45 Nervous Breakdown
12:30 The Weather

Organ Trail was up very close to on-time for their quirky mix of musical influences. Banjo played with a bow, drum kit and organ (of course), along with ghetto blaster and guitar. They state that they chose their name from "the old mac computer game in which you had to buy supplies, shoot buffalo, ford the river and watch your family die of cholera." This, rather sadly dates anyone who can remember playing it on a Bell & Howell model Apple computer in the early 80s...

The music was a bit like a forced march across the continent, to be sure; slow to build, they take their time getting where they're going - much like those damned settlers. It's enjoyable while it's happening, but once it's over, you're not entirely sure what you've seen or why you bothered. Vocals and instrumentation at times seem to want to break into a bit of bluegrass, but they stay rather controlled and just shy of plucking and twanging. I'd definitely liked to have heard more of the organist's voice; what little there was hinted at some real power.

Nervous Breakdowns (pictured above) brought some rock to the table with a boyscout-uniformed lead singer feeding us quirky lyrics about such things as a growing weight problem, pro-Woody Allen songs and frenetic tunes advocating the building of bird houses. I'm a fan of well handled cover songs, and there were two nice pieces here when they played The Replacements' 'Beer for Breakfast' and Napolean XIV's 'They're Coming To Take Me Away' (both tunes are on their MySpace page).

Surprise number 2: By the end of nervous breakdowns, the night was only 15 - 20 minutes behind schedule. Adjusting this normal time reading to what I refer to as "Columbia Standard Time", things were running ahead of schedule.

The coveted Odd Moment Of The Night Award goes to the a guy in the front row, eating a can of Clover Leaf flavoured tuna directly from the can. He'd eat a bit of tuna, and rock out to the Nervous Breakdowns a bit, and then eat some more. I suppose it's no more disgusting than mixing Jagermeister with fruit juice, but it's a bit of an odd precedent. Does the Columbia vending machine spit out tuna?

The Weather's vocalist had a bit of a David Byrne thing with a side of Tom Waits for the first couple songs. They moved on to some very fresh, even jazzy numbers and dove right back in to the rock without dropping a beat. This is some pro work here by people who LOVE what they're doing. Exceptional.

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