I first discovered the band Something Corporate (SoCo) while walking randomly in HMV, and still remember paying something like $28 for it and to this day, “Punk Rock Princess” is my favourite song of all time.

Much to my dismay SoCo ceased to exist, but front man Andrew McMahon created a new band (though largely it’s thought of as a solo project) called Jack’s Mannequin.

In a nice moment of serendipity, I actually discovered Jack’s Mannequin in exactly the same way – walking randomly in HMV – but this time in Tokyo, Japan. I heard Andy’s unmistakable voice over the in-house speakers and for a minute thought SoCo had a new album, but discovered it was another band entirely.

Needless to say, I was so psyched to check out their concert in Montreal and it was a blast. Andy actually was diagnosed with lukemia a few years ago, but watching the concert and the energy, you’d hardly know that he came this close to dying just awhile ago.

The songlist was perfect. I think Jack’s Mannequin showed a great understanding that fans want to hear material, but that doesn’t mean they don’t want to hear the old ones either. While most of the songs were from the new album, old tracks like The Mixed Tape, Dark Blue, Bruised and La La Lie were performed as well, as well as Cavanaugh Park – a song that was originally performed by SoCo. I knew Jack’s Mannequin still played SoCo songs, and I was hoping for Punk Rock Princess, but it was still nice to hear a SoCo song.

One song I hoped – but didn’t expect – would be played is Caves. I mainly didn’t expect it to be played because it’s more than 7 minutes long, but played it was and it’s such an amazing song. It’s a lot about his battle with the “sickness” (as he refers to it) and you can really feel the emotion in the song. Given I’m the same age he was when he was diagnosed with it, I am absolutely inspired by his fight and battle with it and I can’t imagine what he had to go through. If you only check out one video, let it be caves. The lyrics and almost haunting music really blend seamlessly to form a perfect song.

I don’t have the full songlist this time, but I took 10 full songs out of about 15. So that’s not bad. It was really hard to keep my hand still (because I just felt like jumping up and down half the time), so I hope you like the videos.