Dave took these wicked shots of Illuminati.

As a teenaged headbanger in small-town Southwestern Ontario, there were few words more repugnant to me than "pop." It smacked of NKOTB, Tiffany, the Metallica black album, and all of the vapid, trendy things my friends and I were against. Sure, we were a marginalized group of stoned, skittish, pasty nerds. But at least we were True.

The way Mike tells it, life in the even smaller enclave of New Hamburg was different. "Metalheads RULED that town!" he reminisces. They were the popular kids, the jocks and the bullies. Yes, it was a pop-free utopia of corn fields and refrigerated transport trucks.

I don't wear as much acid wash as I used to, but I've never really gotten over that knee-jerk reaction to the idea of pop. So I was relieved to discover the hardly-secret fact that Pop Montreal offers much more.

In fact, we've booked ourselves three solid days of rawk, beginning with Three Inches of Blood, Illuminati and a Javelin Reign at P'tit Campus. Illuminati's blistering performance (topped only by Priestess!) at the same venue was the highlight of last year's Pop for me. They were still mighty good last night, although slightly prone to Lungbutter-esque digressions.

Three Inches of Blood were SO metal. Like, New Wave of British Heavy Metal. Only they wouldn't have seemed completely out of place in corpse paint. The second singer seemed a bit superfluous, but the main dude wailed like Halford on a good day. I don't even care that my ears are bleeding and I won't be able to properly hear another show all weekend.

Also, cutest. Pit. EVER. They were all like 17, all sober, and all totally freaking out to Three Inches of Blood. But they were so respectful of the edges of the crowd that they didn't touch us once. It was sort of weirdly impressive. I really want to hang out with those kids.