Exeunt: Lulu LaMontagne

Third time’s the charm. At the end of the winter semester, my friend had convinced me to come see her friend’s band play at Casa del Popolo—not knowing at all what their sound was, except for the fact that this friend had said the band was “glam-rock esque.” I had immediate visions of Kiss, with their loud makeup and frequent tongue protrusions. I remember not knowing what to expect; the unknown lay before my ears, and I was vaguely uncomfortable. We were preparing for a certain amount of wincing and had hung close to the wall. The band, all except the lead singer, began to play a rousing cacophony, and I wondered if this was some sort of instrumental group or something. But then, Lulu emerged from the crowd. I hadn’t caught a glimpse of them before the show, but once I saw the laced-up corset, the hoop earrings grazing the tops of their shoulders, and that platinum-blonde, dishevelled hair, I had a feeling my ears were about to be rocked off. 

Since first seeing Lulu perform, I was caught.  

And here I stand, at Foufounes (my very first time at the venue) to watch the band play their final show on The Tolling Belle tour, severely tipsy.  

Before even arriving at the venue, I was anxious about being on time: okay, the show is from eight to eleven forty-five, gotta be there by seven thirty when the doors open. I had somehow accepted that the band was going to play for three hours and have no openers. A rookie move. I took a ride to my friend’s place, and kept my shoes on, thinking we were dashing immediately out. To my surprise, she wasn’t pressed for time. Odd. I decided to let go of my worries and let her and her roommate decide when we would leave, mostly because I couldn’t handle the pressure. This suspension of control is foreign to me. When I first heard Lulu perform, I suspended control over my body. I let the drums pound in my sternum, let my feet tap-tap to their own volition. I let my arms sway about me—careful not to spill any beer. The riffs felt like static in the darkness, cropping up every so often. I thought I had to soak up all of my observations of the set deep inside my mind’s eye and somehow view it all from afar. Instead, I’m left with snippets of images and melodies.  

My friends and I stop for a smoke on Saint-Catherine. I see large, yellow letters: O U F O U. I can’t make out the entire thing. Strange. I wonder why we’ve stopped here. I can make out a drill beat and an accompanying guitar. Right: the venue. We puff along, yawning here and there because we all seem to be on the same page of exhaustion—for the moment. I turn to my other friend when I see a tall, blond person approaching us. I recognize their face but don’t recall their name. They offer a smile at our little  group: “If you’re here right now, you must be coming to see our set, hey?” That’s when I realize that this is Lulu—outside of business hours, when they aren’t belting into a mic. I hadn’t recognized them without the dark makeup and half-bare chest. They chomp away at a shawarma, dish out their nice-to-meet-you’s and stroll away. 

I recall a purple spotlight lighting Lulu’s face as they sang their ballad tune during the set. I can still see it: the single droplet of sweat that dislodged itself from their nose, swallowing the light like a crystal.  Kind of a rocker moment. Lulu’s corset was sliding down, and they, uninterested in hoisting it back up.  

The show ranged from smooth tempos gliding over the crowd to high energy beats—from swaying gently, linking arms with my friends, to a mosh that was led by Lulu hopping off stage and shoving those closest to them. The balance of it all (having already heard this set twice before) still steered my attention to the striking sounds of guitars and bass. I was still mesmerized by the complex percussion and still found myself, a smile plastered onto my face, bopping my head in the way I only really do for rock.  

Lulu Lamontagne’s sound feels like dark velvet embedded with spikes. Brassy melodies pierced with vibrant crescendos. There’s an essence of DIY tied to the band. Minimal bells and whistles, but lots of drama, in the purest of senses. The drama of having your lead singer emerge from an anticipatory audience once the instruments begin playing and having them leave before they’ve finished performing is theatrical. I’m sure many musicians before Lulu have done exactly this, but as I have not seen it for myself, it leaves me imagining the band as these phantoms that come to rock your house and then sultrily vanish into the dark.  

I recall bursts of expressions that Lulu conjured during the set. It was pulled straight from the opera.  Fluttering fingers encasing their face—flashes of Edvard Munch’s paintings—and I found myself likening Lulu to art I’ve studied.  

One of their slower songs plays, and my friend wraps her arms around my shoulders. Lulu croons. Before the song began, they prefaced by saying the song was going to speak to a deeply personal problem, the curse of being terribly beautiful. A problem we all have, they added with a wink. The chorus comes along: it must be you, it must be you, it must be you, and the crowd all points at each other, the recipients of pointed fingers alternating throughout the repetitions. It must be all for us: the beneficiaries of sound, bound for an hour.