FME 2025: A Review

   “So you got the FME virus and you’re here for the cure,” remarked one of the many volunteers who make the festival possible. That cure? A sonic elixir composed of music, music and more music. Over the four days of Labour Day weekend, August 28th through the 31st, the northern Quebec city of Rouyn-Noranda served as the incubator for the vaccine. So began the twenty-third edition of FME, Festival Music Emergent 2025.    

  The first dose of the anti-virus arrived on Thursday with a trio of bands at the Cabaret du La Dernière Chance. Leading off was Crasher, a three-piece electronic punk band fronted by Airick Asher Woodhead on lead vocals, Kai Thorpe on bass and this evening, the driver of the band, Tyrin Kelly, on drums. 

  Neysa Mae Barnett and Emile Larroche are UTO, an electronic pop duo from Paris, France. Dressed in da-glo neon green outfits with matching glow-in-the-dark electronic keyboards, they offered up cuts from their back catalogue and from their latest release, More Heat to the Fire Part of Fire, and yes, parts of the show were fire, but parts of the show could have used a bit more heat. Although, to the band's credit, in the black light-lit venue, it all appeared quite futuristic, so that was pretty cool.   

  Festival veterans Bibi Club, out of Montreal, Adèle Trottier-Rivard on vocals and keyboards and Nicolas Basque on guitar, closed out the evening. The duo showcased their latest work, Feu De Garde. They were clearly having a great time powering through their hour-long set that was more aggressive and much more amplified than the highly produced studio album. Quite often, guitarist Basque could be found prancing all over the small stage, hamming it up, even invading the space of Trottier-Rivard while she was lighting up the keyboards. All to the great delight of the adoring, appreciative, packed house.

  Breaking away from the art pop theme of the first day, Population II hit the main stage Friday night. With Pierre-Luc Gratton on vocals and drums, Tristan Lacombe on guitar and keyboards, and Sébastien Provençal on bass proved that old school rock and roll is alive and well. Blending psychedelic rock and funk, the Montreal trio spun tight jams often just on the edge of control.

  Friday, the first full day of the festival, had scheduled the highly anticipated appearance of the band Solids at Cabaret de la Dernière Chance. The punk duo of Xavier Germain Poitras on guitar & vocals and Louis Guillemette on drums & vocals were returning to the stage after a five-year absence. From their performance, one could see that they had built up a lot of pent-up energy over those five years as they blasted through their critically acclaimed album, Blame Confusion. The packed, stifling hot venue appreciated every moment of their return to the extent of even demanding a couple of encores that the band wasn’t really prepared for.   

  Pounding a riff into the ground until it screamed for mercy, Montreal’s experimental rock trio Yoo Doo Right got the ball rolling for the Solids set with a hot, high-energy performance of their own.  

  FME is famous for its pop-up, impromptu concerts that take place throughout Rouyn-Noranda. Often held in an alley, park or parking lot, the city becomes encased in music. Frequently heard in the background, the music floats adrift in the breeze, past with one left wondering or even searching for the source. Garage/ pop band La Flemme provided such an event Saturday afternoon when they could be heard along the boardwalk. Like Sirens of yore, the calling of the band's groovy rhythms was able to lure unwary bystanders away from their shopping and onto a nearby bench.   

  A day earlier, a tad before midnight Friday ,Baby Berserk took over the parking lot of the local poutine establishment. Hailing from Amsterdam, the pop trio seemed quite at home with the DIY nature of the event. Clad in a bright red raincoat, lead singer Eva Wijnbergen was definitely not lost in the woods when, while pumping out disco-infused synthpop for the ages, she climbed up a nearby lamp post. Much to the delight of the bemused viewers. 

   Toronto’s OBGMs (The oOohh Baby Gimme Mores) graced the main outdoor stage Saturday night. Powered by drummer Colanthony Humphrey, guitarist Simon Outhit, bassist Joe Brosnan and the vocals of Densil McFarlane, the OBGMs fuse punk, rock, and hip-hop. McFalane often jumped into the amped up crowd as he belted out songs from their much-acclaimed album, The Ends.   

  In hindsight, everything that happened Saturday night seemed to lead up to the late-night, last show of the evening that was being held in the dank, spooky basement of Petit Thèâtre du Vieux Noranda. Unaware of what was about to happen, soaking in the goth atmosphere, like a deer in the headlights when the few houselights dim, then a suppressed atom waiting to explode from its nucleus that goes by the name, Baby Volcano, erupted onto the FME scene.  Combining Latin American rhythms with hybrid-pop, the Swiss-Guatemalan artist melded music and dance into a trippy, strobe lights-accentuated psychedelic frenzy. Singing in both French and Spanish, and a background in contemporary dance, Baby Volcano is the nom de guerre of artist Lorena Stadelmann. 

  Sunday, alas Sunday, the final day of the festival, filled with ominous dread, the end of FME for another year. To help soothe the soul, there was an afternoon concert by Vancouver’s Empanadas Illegales. With their jammy salsa cumbia rhythms and infectious grooves, the sextet provided the perfect musical backdrop for a lovely Sunday afternoon in a park. Or in this case, the city's botanical gardens. The band, Jaime Millan guitar, Ricardo Perez guitar and vocals, Andrea Milagros maracas, Jocelyn Waugh trumpet, Alonso Benavente Fortes congas and percussion and Daniel Ruiz drums, timbales and vocals, had the smiling crowd dancing to their beat all while munching on the complimentary corn roast. 

  With the famous metal extravaganza and closing concerts not until late into the evening hours, there was still time to catch the last of the unscheduled pop-up concerts. This one was being held at a picturesque stage along the lakeside boardwalk of Parc Trémoy. For those who missed her extraordinary performance the night before Baby Volcano was scheduled. Sprung from the familiar confines of an atmospheric, dark, dank basement and exposed to the bright sunshine and an all-age audience, the band seem to take it as a challenge to escape from their norm. Singing in both French and Spanish with a background in contemporary dance, gone were the trippy strobe lights and some of the artistic frills; in their stead was the depth of their repertoire. Donning a blonde wig and channelling, much to the surprise and applause of the audience, Baby Volcano’s alter ego of sort, a classical flamenco guitarist.    

  The big closing event featured Les Freaks de Montréal and their homage to legendary Quebec band Aut’Chose or as they say, “Un bummage à Aut’Chose.” Featuring the star-studded collective which brought together members of Voïvod, GrimSkunk, Groovy Aardvark, Tricky Woo, and Entre Aut’. Joining them for this special night was a who’s who of the festival lineup. Putting their own take on the classic songs, Montreal art pop artist N Nao and Pierre-Luc Gratton from Population ll were just two of many to join in the celebration of Aut’Chose. The concert certainly lived up to the hype, but unfortunately for the following band, they raised the bar quite high that not many could match. 

  From the classic rock of Aut’Chose to the bizarre Psych/Fusion of Montreal band TEKE::TEKE. Or was this FME’s version of And Now For Something Completely Different? The psychedelic rock septet fuses Japanese folk, Brazilian garage and psych rock. “While gazing at the sky one afternoon, TEKE::TEKE vocalist Maya Kuroki saw a cloud that looked like it had a bite taken out of it. The word that came to her mind, Hagata. Something profound: a trace, a mark, or a presence left behind, a sense of duality—of being in-between worlds.” This was taken from the band's press release used to describe their album, the music they perform and just by chance, maybe even the festival they performed at. 

  The metal show, always Sunday night, an FME icon in its own right, scheduled Montreal’s deathcore legends Despised Icon to end the trio of metal bands (Digital Ghosts and Scorching Tomb were the prior). Pounding the metal pavement for twenty-odd years, the band did not show any signs of slowing down. Dual lead vocalists, Alex Erian and Steve Marois, pummeled the sold-out theatre with machine gun-like short wrap style vocals behind the crashing, mosh pit frenzied beats of Alex Pelletier on drums, Sebastien Pichè on bass and Eric Jarrin on lead guitar.

  For those who refused to call it a night, there was one last chance to dance, to sway, to postpone the inevitable. Automelodi at the small outdoor Fizz Stage. The alley is dark, the stage afire in red light while the fog machine works overtime. The dense electronic grooves of Montreal synthpop songwriter/producer Xavier Paradis seem to be the perfect match for the moment. Then it ends abruptly without warning. Our hero leaves, exiting into the dark night. No encore, no more FME. The brain and body reel, longing for sensory overload. The late-night DJ turns up the volume, pumping out the beats for the few remaining stragglers. The kids dance and shake their bones while the old folks drink the last of their beer and stare at the barren festival site. Despite the DJ’s best efforts to keep the antidote flowing, the FME virus could already be felt lingering in the Rouyn-Noranda air. In a last-ditch attempt to fight off the infection, highlights of the festival, memories of the last four days, attempt to serve in lieu of the vaccine. The past, even one so soon, proves to be a placebo at best. For Festival Music Emergent is always about the future, and the real cure is still a year away at FME 2026.  

  Tristan Lacombe (keyboards ) and Pierre-Luc Gratton (drums) of  Population II.

  Baby Volcano and friends.

 Les Freaks de Montréal “Un bummage à Aut’Chose”

Densi McFalane of the OBGMs out among the faithful.