Last night, Francis Baptiste threw his long awaited album release show in celebration of last year’s Lived Experience in East Vancouver, as he hit the Green Auto popup stage with support from some hand picked local acts.

?NUMB?DAME? was already on stage when I got to Green Auto, swinging from the chaotic “i LOVE LESBiANS (Lesbian Lover)” to the (relatively) calmer emo bop “Goddess of the Moon Tattoo”, as well as an almost spoken word song in support of Palestine. The trio almost never took their collective feet off the gas before somehow cranking it up even more as the set ended with a screaming intensity of “GOOD LUCK (is for suckers)”.

Next up was Cara Bateman, bursting out of the blocks loud and fast with some more punk vibes, even while declaring “Punk is Dead”. She hopped off the stage to dance with the crowd for the first few songs, before talking about how she liked to change genres frequently and going into a couple grungier songs, telling the story of when “Joe Rogan Broke Up My Relationship”. Then she capping off the set with a slower piano balled, “I Wrote This for You” as she sat on the edge of the stage with her R&B-tinged vocals filling the room.

Following her was Vancouver’s self described #1 drag musician, Dust Cwaine, bringing a big energy as they started off with “Brooklyn” and weaved through some songs from their recent album Twin Lakes, from the incredibly catchy “Burn After Reading” to the heart wrenching “Take My Stories”. They also dipped back in their catalogue for the nostalgia-soaked “90’s Darling”, only causing me a little psychic damage when they asked who doesn’t remember that decade, and a good portion of the room cheered.
Part way through the set, Dust lead a singalong to Smash Mouth’s “All Star”, joking that anyone who doesn’t know the words needs to leave until the next set, before wrapping up with the T4T love song “Little Plans”.

And finally it was time for the man of the hour, Francis Baptiste, who took the stage backed by Rob Thomson on bass and Max Ley on drums, and exclaimed he was going to start at the end and launched into the final track of the album, “Mistakes for Two”. From there Francis ran through songs like the hard hitting “Locked in for Life” and ripping guitar on “Whole Wide World”, as he told stories about his past addictions and how they formed songs like “How Long is the Winter” and talking about being a single dad, lighting up every time he mentioned his son was in the room tonight to see him play.

After going back to his debut album Snəqsilxʷ (Family) for “River’s End”, he wrapped up the set by mentioning all the people he couldn’t get on stage who worked on the album, as the orchestral swells played on the backing tracks for the gorgeous “Kid on the Block” fittingly ending the set with the first song of the album.

I’ve been meaning to catch Francis play live since his album came out, so I was happy for a belated album release show, and especially that it was such a fun night with an eclectic selection of Vancouver bands!