Murray performs in North America for the first time in 12 years!

Montreal, Quebec. Valentine's Day. The night was cold. A beautiful snowflake alighted fluffily upon my head. I rounded the corner onto St. Laurent, the home of Club Soda, and the bright colors of all the porn shops filled my eager eyes. I have a lovely photograph of myself standing by a door proclaiming itself the entry to Sex Village. Whether it was a little room selling naughty toys or a gateway to a Harry Potter-esque world of magic, mystery, and lots and lots of sex, I'll never know, as I couldn't bring myself to even touch the door handle, let alone enter.

Lucky for me, Club Soda's brightly lit sign was just a few feet away, and my attention shifted to two words I thought I'd never see in lights: Murray Head. We queued up and entered the club, where seats are first come, first serve. The opener was a Canadian gent, his guitar, and his take on Reggae. I couldn't wait for him to finish. Not because he sucked, or, well, did he? I don't know. I was too eager for Murray to perform to be a fair judge of the fellow.

I really didn't know what to expect from Murray in terms of onstage personality. So when he came out and said sheepishly, in French, that the band was late (or missing) and that all he had was a boom box, I thought for a second that maybe he was being honest. It was a joke, and the boom box started 'playing' One Night in Bangkok. Murray then appeared on the balcony, and rapped the song out perfectly as he traversed the crowd.

Once he had that out of the way, he proceeded to hammer out songs with very few breaks for 2 1/2 hours. He was energetic and witty. He seemed to be having a wonderful time, and that enthusiasm was contagious. I think the 12 year gap between performances in Quebec led to a bit of over enthusiasm by some who, to Murray's amusement, kept yelling interesting things at him. One of which he replied something like: "I think, madam, you and I must get together later, as there are things that you and I need to say to each other that these people needn't hear."

Sophie Head, who is one of Murray's daughters, has definitely inherited some of Murray soulfulness, in addition to inheriting perhaps her mother's shape; neither of which are bad things. Add in the perfect-10-blonde percussionist, Melissa Lavergne, and I'm sure it was hard for the (straight) men present to keep their eyes on the star of the show.

Overall he sounded great, he put on a great show, had a competent band backing him up. I believe the enthusiasm of the crowd will ensure his return to North America sooner rather than later. In fact, the word is he may return in February 2006.

- Jason Latona

Melissa Lavergne, ?,?, Sophie Head, Murray Head, ?, ?