Patrick Watson Wins Polaris Music Prize

09/25/07 1:30pm

by Steve McLean (CHARTattack)

Patrick Watson and his three bandmates are the winners of the $20,000 Polaris Music Prize for their Close To Paradise album.

The money will quickly be put to good use, as Watson explained after accepting the second annual award from first-year winner Owen Pallett (Final Fantasy). It seems that a bill for $16,000 had just arrived from the Budget rental agency for a van that the band had crashed earlier this year in North Dakota. That still leaves them $4,000 to go crazy with.

Watson and his crew opened the musical portion of the evening by performing two songs. They were followed throughout the course of the night by two-song sets from fellow short list finalists The Besnard Lakes, Joel Plaskett Emergency, Chad VanGaalen, Julie Doiron with Eric's Trip and Miracle Fortress.The Besnard Lakes and VanGaalen showed the most dynamic range in their performances, displaying both their loud and soft sides. Doiron jumped around and danced during VanGaalen's first number, and Watson said that he thought the Calgary multi-instrumentalist should have won the award.

CBC Radio 3 host and Smugglers frontman Grant Lawrence emceed the proceedings, which featured 10 journalists and broadcasters presenting their favourite performers with custom individualized posters with artist interpretations of their albums.

The Dears' Murray Lightburn and wife Natalia Yanchak and Junior Boys were in attendance, but didn't perform. Arcade Fire were in Seattle and Feist was in London, England and weren't able to appear, but the four finalists who didn't play were represented in video form.

K-OS, whose Atlantis — Hymns For Disco album didn't make the final cut, was standing by the bar at the side of the stage snapping photos and chatting with other artists as they passed by.

There was lots of debate and some friendly wagering going on among the more than 400 attendees at Toronto's Phoenix Concert Theatre, as people tried to figure out who the grand jury would select. The 11-member panel was sequestered backstage making its decision during the show, and the final choice seemed to surprise many.

In fact, after the winner was announced, one nominee was heard proclaiming, "What? Anyone but that rat bastard."

More than 170 Canadian music journalists, broadcasters and bloggers were asked to choose their five favourite homegrown albums released between June 1, 2006 and May 31, 2007 in the first round of Polaris voting. Judges were asked to make their selections based solely on artistic merit without regard to genre, sales history or label affiliation. An initial long list was whittled down to 10 based on a points system, with the winner walking off with the honour and cash.