Rewind: A Valentine’s Day date with Paper Lions, Mardeen and Monomyth

Well, it’s a few days after Valentine’s Day, so time to get those half price chocolates and gush over how awesome the show at the Marquee Ballroom in Halifax was on February 14.  The event was presented by Halifax Pop Explosion and your friends at Mixtape Magazine.

Halifax-based Monomyth opened the night with their hazy psychedelic tinged pop and charmed the crowd with their clever one-liners—describing themselves as a “homemade Valentine complete with pink macaroni”. They mixed original songs with covers, introducing every cover as a Kinks song even if that wasn’t the case.

We were treated to some more local talent when Mardeen took to the stage. They connected with the crowd through their beautiful, emotionally-charged tunes from their most recent album Miss You Forever. They also surprised the crowd with one new song they’d been working on. Lead vocalist and bass player, Matt Ellis, gave away a few Valentine-esque set lists to some lucky fans. We will love you forever, Mardeen.

To end the night on a very amorous note, Paper Lions serenaded the crowd with a whole lot of love. Decked out in their colourful attire, it was a very high-energy show that got the whole room dancing. Sticking mostly to new material from their latest album My Friends, they started it up slowly with “Philadelphia” before jumping into high energy songs the rest of the night. The main set finished with their hit single “My Friend” which featured lead singer and guitarist John MacPhee jumping off stage into the crowd for a big sing-a-long, engaging the crowd and treating them all like his friends.

Who needs chocolates, roses or a fancy dinner when you can spend the night with three great Canadian bands such as these?

It was a fun and lovely night.