DJ Jazzy Maise takes on Palomosa 2025

Friday

The first thing I noticed after getting through the lax security was the reorientation of the festival grounds. Last year, Palomosa’s premier, the smaller Jardin stage was under the Tois Disques sculpture by blahblah. Instead of dancing under this creative brutalist concrete being, we were in a muddy pit of AstroTurf surrounded by festival bars all selling the same expensive drinks ($10 for a blue PBR is crazy).

Food options: three food trucks, well, one was just a cart. Or vegan quesadillas you made at home that the lax security let you take in (thank you)

 

Isla Den

Kicking the whole festival off at the Jardin stage, Montreal’s ethereal pop musician, sort of a dreamy hyperpop along the lines of early Petal Supply, or, if Milk & Bone were more danceable and electronic (and cooler, in my opinion). The crowd started small but continuously grew. Everyone was very cool-looking and dancing around, and there was still enough space to comfortably smoke a cigarette. Isla Den’s set was half DJ, half live. I really enjoy it when artists mix their skills and creations in this way. They mixed SOPHIE, Charli XCX, and Drain Gang songs and performed some new releases. It was a beautiful performance with the wind making the fog machine dance in the lowering sun.

9/10

The background of the Jardin stage was an electrical box and a recycling bin. Who decided to put the stage there? Why didn’t they have any background? Did no one think it looked funny? 

 

 

MGNA CRRTA

This New Jersey girl duo opened up the main stage, and when I say opened, I really mean opened: five minutes before they were set to start, workers removed the gates to the other half of the festival grounds, people, mostly scene kids sporting neon and tails, literally ran to the stage. Their set was pretty baller; they played all their hits, nicely mixed into the rest of their set with some unreleased songs. The two baddies alternated between the mic and the mixing board, and relied heavily on the siren and ‘bew bew beeww’ (you know the one) sound effects, like, almost every 20 seconds there was some sound screaming at me. They made up for it with a giant bubble gun, shooting bubbles into the crowd at the peak of their 30-minute-long set. It was epic, I like them a lot. My favourite quote was “if you’re a girl make some noise, if you’re a boy make some noise, if you’re not a boy or a girl make some noise”, I think the nonbinaries were the loudest. 

9/10

So glad I have a raccoon tail on my backpack. Really blending in (not sarcastic).

I think I follow everyone here on Instagram.

 

 

The Hellp

The Los Angeles band opened up their set by announcing that one of their two members was Canadian, which the crowd responded with moans and groans that loosely translated to: ‘okay, well, we’re in Quebec..’. He kind of looks like Jared, my CJLO comrade, who was very pleased when I told him this. They played all their hits, of which there are many (I like them a lot), and about half of the crowd were really into it. The other half of the crowd was just yapping, and since this was still a daytime set, the music was not loud enough at all for me to really lock into it. Their stage presence was pretty much exactly what a toned-down LA version of The Dare would be: black suit and tie, ignoring the audience and often just looking at the floor of the stage. 

7/10 

You know that feeling when you’ve been generally overwhelmed, but you can’t tell which sense it is that needs a break till you take your sunglasses off and finally feel like you can see again? I felt a lot better once the sun started to set and I revealed my eyes to the public. The festival grounds started to fill up a lot, which relieved the grating sense of perception I feel in alt-queer-coded-cool-kid crowds. I could let my eyes glaze over the sea of normies that grew around me. 

 

 

Mechatok, Minna No Kimochi, MCR-T, TDJ

Back at the astro terf pit (the Jardin stage) was a lineup of DJs that all sort of blended together for me. There was no screen at the Jardin stage naming the artists, and I kept wandering off. I had little idea who was who and what time it was and what was going on. I would bop around in the crowd and get distracted by delivery trucks doing their business on the other side of the fence. Eventually, I’d go off into the woods to watch the moon peaking in and out of clouds, almost full. The crowd had shifted from weirdo-freaks with various types of tails incorporated in their outfits to a very alt.jpeg Pleateau-core vibe. Not a bad thing, as I enjoyed being able to fade into anonymity, just kind of boring. The DJs were good, but not enough to lock me into the music. 

5/10

Save me hammocks under the trees … save me… 

 

Fcukers

As the day waned to night and the artists’ names on the posters got larger, the audio got louder and clearer; I could actually hear and enjoy the music while not being in the thick of the crowd. I didn’t really know this band, but I knew I would love them. The sun was setting into dark, wet quick quick-moving clouds, the horizon pink. The music was good, the singer’s voice was sexy, and I was vibing.

8/10

 

 

M.I.A.

The crowd was huge. People were hyped. She had swagger, a stage full of dancers, and a live band with a steel drum. It sounded great. Her dancers were cranking that Soulja Boy. She's been in the game a long time, but a lot of her music is too left field for a festival audience to know her songs that came out 10 years ago. It felt a bit like that early Charli XCX clip: “I thought this song was big in Germany??!!”. That was her first fumble. The second fumble was her comment on the 1970s revolution vibes, something about if Bob Marley had a dance routine, our parents would’ve been too busy dancing to care about changing the world. Dancing should always have a place in revolutionary movements. About halfway through, she stopped her set to start talking. The mic was mixed for singing, not speaking, so it was difficult to understand what she was saying; it was difficult to make out and did not make any sense. She started off by saying she was okay being called a Trump supporter, that we can have “red pills and pills that are blue”. She's always been a bit on the weird politics side and has often been chastised for it, but since 2020, her anti-vax and tinfoil hat views have gone a bit viral. She’s probably somewhat right about 5G being bad for us, but I can’t stop myself from laughing when the foil blankets came out on stage. It felt like she was trying to start a dialogue with the audience, or at least urged us to consider more about the future of Palestine, that we shouldn’t always be reacting from a defensive place. The future of Palestine is not up to the audience of Palomosa, or Westerners in general; it’s up to the Palestinian people, of whom we are trying to defend, because they are under attack. I don’t know if she was getting responses from those in the front of the crowd, but it felt like she was just yelling at us about how disappointed she was with Trump, as if she had hopes he would do something good. Everyone was confused and annoyed. There was a brief “F Donald Trump” chant; eventually, she donned a kaffiyah and finished her set with her top three songs. Her annoyance with us was palpable, but what did you expect, trying to talk to a crowd of hundreds of inebriated festival goers? 

I really want to give her some grace and come to the conclusion that we agree on the important basics of anti-colonialism and anti-zionism, with some concerns about the level of technology our society is surrounded by, but as CJLO’s program director commented, she seems to have spent too much time on Twitter and not enough on podcasts. 

 

 

Saturday

It rained all morning. The weather really threatened to repeat what happened on last year’s day two: rain, all day, dreary, cold, wet, with little shelter and a lack of hot drinks. A lot of people still showed up to the fest, but there was a stark difference between those in full rain suits and those in t-shirts and short shorts. Thankfully, just before I got on my bike to head to the fest, the sky cleared up and the glorious sun warmed and dried the world. It ended up being a beautiful day. Thank you, weather beings. 

This whole day, I stuck to the main stage. Day one felt a bit chaotic with constantly going back and forth, trying to catch bits of everyone. I passed by the Jardin stage at one point in the late evening, and it was just walls of noise, lights and people. I was not enticed by the astroturf pit. 

 

 

Cecile Believe

This Montrealais alt-popstar is underrated. I feel like not many people know of her, but those who do come to her opening festival set and they throw down. She was very grateful for us, and the vibe was really great. She played all her hits, including her ‘new’ song with SOPHIE. It felt a bit like her POP Montreal show last October, her being a bit surprised she has such cool and dedicated fans who find her sets too short. I remember at the end of her show last year, everyone cried for an encore, but she didn’t have anything prepared. Someone in the audience said they would be happy if she just played something from Spotify and sang along with us. I felt this was still true here. 

7/10

The camo gays are here and I love them!

 

 

Loukeman

This Torontonian DJ has really great songs, but this was more of a DJ set than original music, which was a bummer for me cause I was really not vibing to this sorta straight-normie-boarderline-skater-club music. It didn’t help that two of his Boys (friends? Entourage? Polycule?) came out on stage with him, and I was transfixed by their grills. What is this, 2007? What is going on? The gay members of the crowd, which included members of Montreal’s Ribbon Skirt, seemed to agree with me and moved along to the music in a non-committal way, waiting for it to get better. It did get better, thankfully, when he played gay music (Pink Pantheress).

2/10

I don’t really understand the draw of the VIP section. Yeah, it's next to the stage, but also, it's next to the stage, the view sucks, and there's no price difference at the bar. It's really just tables, but you have to stand at the tables. I just don’t get it.

 

Marie Davidson

Another Montreal musician with a half DJ, half live set, I am really appreciating this type of performance. However, I don’t know if I was just too close to the stage, but her presence kind of scared me. Maybe it just wasn’t dark enough yet to let my guard down yet but I found the evil-leather-brunett-Rocky-Horror vibe a bit too much for me at that moment. If it were closer to Halloween, I would’ve gotten into it, but I just was not feeling it in the summertime sunshine. Her stage presence was really phenomenal, and I felt fairly locked into it, but the way her vocals were getting mixed muddled anything she was saying to the audience. Something was going wrong on the equipment side of things, and her set was interrupted by tech dudes and later just abruptly ended. No idea what that was about. 

4/10

At least they play MF DOOM between sets 

 

 

Yeule

This was so rockstar. So alien sex god grunge rockstar power aura. Very band-that-would-play-in-Buffy-the-Vampire-Slayer. I loved it. It felt really reminiscent of Yves Tumor's performance last year, with the lights and the sunset and the complete disregard of the audience because the band is just too cool for that. The live drums and guitars and leather jacket, and tiny shorts had me entirely transfixed. They played from their two most recent albums and even whipped out a violin bow to play their guitar, very cool but really brief, I would’ve loved a bit of experimental noise solos from this, but perhaps a festival setting is not the place for that. But it was the most involved I had seen the crowd yet, so maybe it would have worked! This set was great, but there were music video clips playing on loop on the stage screen that were a bit too distracting. 

9/10

I ran into my ex’s best friend’s ex I liked on Hinge, who never messaged me back. He gave me a hug. Okay

 

 

Rebecca black

She is just like a paramedic, finger right on the pulse. Even though during the earlier sets I had been surrounded by queers with tails, it felt the gayest during her set. I was really impressed by the vibe curation of this set; this felt like the most put-together and professional performer of the whole festival. The stage had prop protest signs with slogans mirroring homophobic protesters at pride: HOMO SEX IS LIFE. Her two dancers were beautiful buff gays in tight bedazzled camo tank tops and bleached buzzcuts, holding a camo banner with her name on it, which she climbed over at the beginning of her vocals. The screen behind her was perfect, bright colours flashing her name and flames with her lyrics; it was perfectly captivating and not distracting, and followed the music perfectly. I did not realize how much of a dedicated fan I was until I realized I knew all of her songs and had emotional connections to all of them. Two of her recent albums (Rebecca Black Was Here; SALVATION) corresponded to big breakups I’ve had, so yeah, it felt really good to scream along. This was her third performance in Montreal this year, and it did feel a bit gym teacher-y with a lot of ‘jump!’ and ‘hands up!’ sort of commands, kind of felt like a scene in But I’m A Cheerleader. Still, though, I did what she asked.

10/10

Yes, she did play her 2011 viral sensation Friday, yes, she played it in the middle of one of her more recent songs, yes, it was incredibly epic. Yes, recession pop is here, and camo is so back.

 

 

Arca

A lot of people came just for Arca. Which I don’t really get, like, if you’re going to pay for festival tickets, why don’t you come for at least some of the day rather than just the headliner? There are other cool artists. Do y’all not want the bragging rights of seeing Rebecca Black play Friday in 2025?

Arca mostly dj-ed but did play some original music. She minimized the size of her tube top within 10 minutes of being on stage. It was very cool and she is very beautiful, but I couldn’t really get into it. I haven't listened to much of Arca, but what I have heard is more of her earlier music instead of the more Latin beats she played. Yes! I am a poser :)

Arca saw Princess Sienna hanging out in the wings and invited her out onto the stage. I really had no clue who this was, but learned she is some sort of local Instagram trans woman artist sensation, I don’t know, I do not engage with the internet in that niche. It was cool to have additional sexy entertainment on stage, but I got a bit annoyed as it continued through the rest of the show, mostly from the repeated screaming into the mic. All of the vocals were peaking. It wasn’t great, but everyone seemed to be having a phenomenal time, and that's what matters. Someone gave her a Venezuelan flag with her name spraypainted across it, she draped it across her shoulders and took a moment to comment on peace and love, that that is what it's all about. This is how you address the greater political climate at a festival show. 

7/10

 

All in all

This was better than last year, definitely helpful that the headliner didn’t drop out at the last minute, and it didn’t rain for a whole day like last year. The festival seems to be finding its niche a bit more, and the lineup and organization of artists made more sense and blended a bit better together, though there were still some abrupt vibe shifts. The food options seemed very limited, but security did let me bring in snacks. It is very strange to me that there was no merch tent. I wanted merch. I wanted to stare longingly at an $80 Yeule hoodie or something. 

It was an interesting weekend to spend in a very different subculture than what I normally partake in (raves in the woods). So many eternal thanks to Palomosa and CJLO for inviting me back to be a weird, cynical mid-20-year-old at this festival <3