Concert Reviews

As a first-year student at Concordia, I’d never been to McGill’s Lilith Fair, though I’m aware that it happened last year as well. This mini-festival, organized by the McGill Collective for Gender Equality and McGill’s Jam for Justice, is inspired by the original Lilith Fair, founded by Sarah McLachlan in 1997. Her goal with this festival was to promote female artists and address gender inequality in the music industry.

The press tour for Josh Safdie’s new film, Marty Supreme, is virtually inescapable. Perhaps you’ve seen the orange blimp flying over the southern USA.

Old Soul, a rock band together for nearly a decade, released their new album, Undercurrent, two weeks ago. I streamed it soon after it dropped. It was early morning on the bus to work, and I wasn’t expecting the tone change for this album after having listened intensely to their first album, Overgrown, three years ago. The audience was given context for this upcoming project: flowing water, the colour blue, and a siren lounging along a rock face.

The outside of Le Ministère was inconspicuous enough for a Monday. With a few smokers lingering outside and muffled music pouring onto the street, it seemed like any other evening on Saint-Laurent Street. Yet, past the chilly air and into the sweaty, hazy venue, indie pop duo Between Friends brought Montreal into the euphoric, 2000s-fuelled world of their new album, WOW!

I had never heard of the band Anamanaguchi going into this; in all honesty, I was here for the opener bands Fanclubwallet and Ovlov.

It’s hard to put into words what the TUKAN experience really is, but I’ll try. Let me set the scene. A year and a half ago, during Montreal’s Jazz Fest on July 5, 2024, my friend went to see Berlioz at MTELUS. After the show, she asked the band the classic question: “Where’s the afters?” In what felt like fate, they replied, “We’re going upstairs.” Upstairs was where TUKAN was performing.

No artist sounds quite like Spill Tab. The genre-blending songs merge alternative pop with jazz nuances. Claire Chica, the creative force behind these entrancing tracks, is a 28-year-old singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and producer. Born in Thailand, raised in Paris, and now based in LA, she crafts English and French songs layered with energetic rhythms, desire, nostalgia, and angst.