Concert Reviews

Photo gallery can be found at the end of the article.

The city of Rouyn-Noranda in the Abitibi-Témiscamingue region of Quebec hosted the 17th edition of Festival de Musique Émergente, otherwise known as FME. The festival hosts a wide array of artists from different genres, of both emerging and popular status. For reference, Rouyn-Noranda is seven hours North of N.D.G and has a population of just over 42,000 people - 400 of which volunteered to help with the four-day festival.

Above: HVAL at Theatre Sainte Catherine. Photo Credit: Chris the Frog

It has been a long time since I have laughed so hard. 

There are 2 major elements that I really enjoyed about The Peers: their very real depiction of theatrical catastrophe, and their ridiculous take on Shakespeare. The premise of this show is that a theatre company has severely overbooked themselves, and they now have to perform multiple Shakespeare plays in one evening. Against undeniably self-inflicted odds, they accomplish this admirably. 

On May 14, 2019 Smino brought his Hoopti tour to Montreal, performing to a full house a L’Astral. This was one of the last stops of the 30-date trek, but you couldn’t tell from the amount of energy Smino and his band brought with them.

Alternative indie band Tokyo Police Club consists of vocalist and bassist David Monks, keyboardist Graham Wright, guitarist Josh Hook, and drummer Greg Alsop. Since they formed back 2005, the indie band from Newmarket, Ontario, has released four studio albums, six if you count the EP compilations like the band do. This current tour is in support of their newest album TPC, aptly named as after chasing a more radio friendly indie pop sound on their 2014 album Forcefield, it is return to their roots. Rob Schnapf, who worked on Champ (2010) returned to produce the album. On the band’s website they simply describe that “TPC is a rock record with tons of guitars” and that couldn't be more true.

Ever since the success of their single “Bridges”, from their debut album Evergreen, released in 2014, New Zealand music duo BROODS has held a special place in the indie and electropop scenes. Their music has seen itself evolve from having an airy, tranquil, and soothing ambiance, to a confident and powerful rebirth in their album Conscious, to a flip to colorful and vibrant 80s sounds in their latest album Don’t Feed the Pop Monster, which came out in February 2019. Despite the variety of sounds they have experimented with over the years, everything they have released is guaranteed to start a dance party.

Beirut is an American band that mixes multiple styles such as indie rock, pop and American folk. Whatever this band experiments with musically, the highlight is always the multi-instrumentalist talents of frontman Zach Condon and the abundant horns in their records. The band was touring in support of their fifth album Gallipoli, named after the town in Italy where they spent some time recording. The twelve songs in this album are smooth, instrumentally rich and take you back to warm summer days.