With summer coming to an end, we figure it’s time to share our recaps of our first ever OSHEAGA coverage! Chandrae and Phil spent the weekend with some great Rock and pop music.
Here we go…
Friday
Arriving on the site at around noon, you can sense the anticipation building, as there were already people lining up for General Admission. You could feel the excitement as the 17th edition of the Osheaga festival was about to start! With my Media pass, I managed to get in early and was able to take a walk around the site, since it was my first time with the new configurations, and let me tell you something – it is big!! It takes about 10 minutes to get to the two main stages from the two secondary stages. This little self-tour also made me aware of where the water stations were, as the entire weekend was proclaimed to be a hot one!!
Before starting my review of the day, as with any multi-stage festival, it’s impossible to see everything. So, you make choices, and you pick sets that you know you will only see a few songs before heading out to the one you really want to see. So, here’s some “quick fire” reviews for Friday:
Vincent Lima: Light indie rock with good tunes. For his first show in Canada, he managed to get a good crowd singing along to his tunes with him.
Two Door Cinema Club: The type of band you would expect at this type of festival, indie pop with catchy songs. Since I’ve already seen them in the past, I passed by quickly, but it’s always nice hearing “I Can Talk” played live.
Avalon Emerson: My first foray into the Coca-Cola stage (aka the EDM stage). I always like heading there occasionally to listen to a good beat and was not disappointed with her. The crowd was ready for a day of dancing.
Wild Rivers
I’m starting the day and settle in to watch Wild Rivers. A folk band from Ontario who, like I mentioned before, some of you might have seen last year during Sommo festival. Some catchy songs, good harmonies, and they managed to get the early crowd going, even though it was already in the 40s in terms of the weather. It was the perfect way to start the festival.
Blonde Redhead
While the festival has changed a lot over the year (in terms of size and widening the musical genres that are booked), we can always count on Osheaga to keep bits here with an “old school” vibe on the roster, and this was one of them.
Previously performing at 2nd edition in 2007, indie rock veterans Blonde Redhead came, and didn’t lose any time, going through their 40 minutes set with a breeze, which is understandable as the roster has been the same since 1996. Playing mostly songs from their latest album “Sit Down for Dinner”, it was a no-fuss/no-frills performance, and at 4 pm, it was all we could ask for.
Mannequin Pussy
This was a band that I was excited to see the moment I listened to their latest album (on Epitaph nonetheless) “I Got Heaven”. Lead singer (and only original member) Marissa “Missy” Dabice brings an intense energy on stage while still not overshadowing the rest of her band, giving them their time in the spotlight during the set.
While their last album is not as “punk” or “abrasive” as the rest of their catalog, the energy is still fast and loud, and got the crowd going for those 45 minutes that just flew by, with people wanting more.
Teddy Swims
Did you ever get the feeling, after watching an opening act, that “yup, this guy will headline this gig/festival in the near future”? Well, that was my sense after watching Teddy Swims perform for the first time at the festival.
The singer from Georgia brought an energy that got the crowd going through the entire set, while making sure to leave us fully satisfied by giving us his two biggest (and certainly not his last) hits, Lose Control and The Door.
Romy
As a fan of her band, The xx, this was a set I was anticipating all day, and it was exactly what I expected. She played a lot of songs from her solo album “Mid Air” (great album, by the way). She surprised us with a few cover/mashups in her set like, for example, mixing the classic “Better off Alone” with the Fred again’s song Lights out.
Melanie Martinez
There’s two ways for an artist to approach a festival set: you can go out there for 45 minutes/1 hour and just deliver the hits in front of an audience who are not necessarily all there to see you or go out and do pretty much the same show you would do for a headlining show. Melanie Martinez went with the latter, and to be honest, it only worked halfway.
Dont get me wrong, the “CryBaby” part (her debut album) was amazing: her theatrical electro pop was making her fans sing pretty much every single word the moment she would point her mic to the crowd, while gaining new fans in the process. But then, the intermission arrived, which lasted about 10 minutes and completely sucked the air out of the new fans she had previously won. She would then come back for a few songs (the K-12 part, her second album), only to give us ANOTHER intermission so she can prepare the final stretch of her 1h performance, focusing on her latest album. “Portals”. When it was done, her fans wished she could have played longer, while the others were already ready for the headliner.
Noah Kahan
When the lineup was announced in November, I was a little skeptical about Noah Kahan as Friday’s headliner. Not because of his lack of starpower (he got plenty of it), but the guy already had a “Canadian” tour (stopping in Quebec City) in the Spring, so would his fans follow him again on Friday night?
The answer…Yes they did! From the moment he started the first chords of his mega hit “Dial Drunk” he knew he had the crowd at the palm of his hand. He then went on to tell some personal Osheaga stories about how he slept in the parking lot during the 2016 edition or when he used to tape whisky bottles to his legs to pass security in the early years. He then went back giving the people what they wanted with 14(!) tracks from his latest album “Stick Season”, brushing his debut album (Busyhead) only twice. Finishing off his set with the usual title track, Noah bought Arlo Parks with him, which was a nice touch.
Even though he told us that he would “leave you guys depressed and anxious” there was no doubt when you saw everyone heading out for the metro station that a lot of them were glad to have seen him twice in a span of less than 3 months.
Noah Kahan has ONE Canadian show left in 2024, and it’s happening right here in Cavendish PEI for the Sommo festival, so get your tickets before it’s too late!
And that’s a wrap for Day 1! A nice chill day, perfect warmup for the potential chaos that was waiting for us on Day 2.
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Saturday
As I got out of the metro station to head to Parc Jean Drapeau, I was already aware that people were lining up since almost 6AM for Day 2! What’s special about this lineup is that it consists of 2 very different types of crowd, but more on that later.
Like yesterday, here’s some rapid-fire reviews. Consisting of bands that I quickly saw while heading to another stage or only saw a few songs of them.
Lola Young: Her light indie pop style was what we needed during the early part of the day. And playing just before Chappell was a great way for her to gather new fans!
Denzel Curry: Aggressive Rap with good beats! Went on to cover bits of Bodies from Drowning Pool which was really good. I would have hoped that he had played his cover of Bulls on Parade, but nonetheless I was satisfied with what I saw.
No Waves
To start a day that will end with some Punk Rock, why not start with some Punk Rock! Local boys No Waves came in in the scorching heat, and right away started blasting us with their fast “quick to the point” punk tunes!
Lindas Lindas
Thankfully (with 40 degrees heat), I didn’t have to move much to see the next band. Playing on the Saviors tour, The Lindas Lindas arrived with some Ramones playing in the background, and took the opportunity of having more time on the schedule than usual to play deeper into their own catalogue, with some Talking Heads and Bikini Kill covers. 2 bands that you can tell influenced them a whole lot! A common theme among the early performers is how surprised they were of seeing that many people for them.
As their set ended, I quickly made my way to the main area, as the “unofficial” co-headliner was about to hit the stage.
Chappell Roan
When the scheduling was made for Osheaga back in the Fall (when the tickets were released, the schedule was already pretty much done), Chappell Roan was playing a 600 people venue in Montreal, which explains the reason to put her at 3PM on a Saturday afternoon. But ever since then, she has had: A Top 10 single (Good Luck, Babe), 7 songs on the Billboard 200, an opening spot on Olivia Rodrigo’s world tour, numerous appearances on year’s end Best Albums lists, drawing over 40,000 during Boston Calling, one of the biggest crowd at Governors Ball Music Festival, and both Bonnaroo and Lollapalooza had to move her set on the main stage in fear of overcrowding. Osheaga tried to move her later in the day/evening, but without any last-minute cancellation, it was impossible.
With that in mind I arrived near the Main stage, and woah! The sea of Pink Cowboy hat (her Pink Pony club) was filling up the two main stages area (for security reason, Evenko decided to shut down access in front of her stage in fear of a crowd rush), and I was seeing people still coming in, hoping to catch the set of their new idol, and she didn’t disappoint at ALL! From the start with Femininomenon, she blasted through her 10 songs set in 45 minutes, but made sure to talk to the crowd, thanking them for the support. It’s tough to describe her performance with only words, so I suggest heading out to Youtube and checking out some of her live performances to understand the buzz about her, but if there’s a way to somehow describe her: She’s this generation’s Cindy Lauper!
Even the heat couldn’t stop the massive crowd from dancing in unison to one of her hits “Hot To Go!”.
It’s probably just a matter of months before she announces her own arena tours. Hopefully a FULL Canadian tour would be in the works, as I know there’s pop fans in Atlantic Canada that would love to see her up close.
TALK
One of the cool things when seeing acts that were fans of the festival in the past (as attendees), is how much fun they have now being the one on the stage! Like Noah the night before, TALK couldn’t hold his excitement and pulled off one of the most “fun” performances of the weekend. Having to follow up one of the hottest names in music in the world right now was no small feat, but he managed to keep the crowd going with his hits, antics (throwing hot dogs to the crowd), and covers. First off he pulled up a nicely done cover of Radiohead’s Creep, then surprised us with a cover of Saskatchewan by Les Trois Accords (the french band that opened for The Rolling Stones back in 2005), and finished the set with “Through the Fire and Flames” by Dragonforce (yup you heard that right). But after all that, I was kinda not surprised, because that is one of Talk’s strengths, he can manage to change his style of singing to make the songs (his own or covers) better.
He’s another artist that the East Coast crowd has a chance to see again as he’ll also play Sommo Festival this Fall!
Rancid
Rancid became only the 2nd to play both Osheaga and the ‘77 Festival (AFI being the other). Another opener from the Saviors tour, we were lucky again as Rancid managed to do a longer set than they would have done usually during this tour. We were treated with more than half of their seminal album “…And Out Come the Wolves”, with the rest spread out through the rest of their careers. You could see the crowd were ready for them (first performance in over 7 years), singing every word, even some circle pits going on here and there, as the sun was slowly fading behind the stage, it gave the crowd an extra boost of energy needed to follow along Rancid’s performance.
Renee Rapp
But in that Rancid crowd, there were also a LOT of Renee Rapp fans (most of them stayed after Chappell Roan’s performance). And they were loud when she came on stage and started right away with one of her hits “Talk Too Much”. From there, she had the crowd in the palm of her hands through the whole hour, and won new fans along the way (me included). I’ll admit, I listened to her before the show, thinking “yeah it will be alright” but her live performance really brings it up another notch.
The Smashing Pumpkins
The final opener of the Saviors tour, The Smashing Pumpkins came in and knew exactly what the crowd was looking for. Even though they have JUST released a new album the day before, they played 0 songs off that new album (I’m guessing they’re keeping that for their proper headlining tour) and went with a set covered in hits from start to finish, even pulling out a U2 cover in the middle (Zoo Station).
It was also the occasion to see for the first time in Montreal their new guitarist Kiki Wong. Who, while not appearing for every song of the set, did her contribution for the songs she was present.
Like Blonde Redhead the day before, it was a no fuss no frill performance, and a good warmup for them for the potential “new album” tour that will surely be happening in the near future.
A little note before we head to the headliner about a situation that was happening during the Smashing Pumpkins set that while for security reasons, could have led to bigger trouble.
Remember earlier when I said that they decided to close the main stage to avoid overcrowding during the Chapell Roan set? Well after Renee Rapp set (which was pretty much the same crowd), they decided to first let them out of the main stage area through one exit while waiting before opening the other entrance to let people in before Green Day. While the reasoning was the correct one to prevent any dangerous situation, there were a few minutes where Green Day were wondering what was happening.
Green Day
The big question before headliner Green Day was about to get on stage is: Will they play both Dookie and American Idiot? Evenko never “officially” announced whether it would be, as the show was labelled as a “Festival Show” on the poster. Mike Dirnt did say that they would need 2h to perform both albums, and they had a timeslot of 2h on the schedule, we would think the possibility would be strong.
The anxious crowd was ready the moment the mashup of entry songs started playing on “Bohemian Rhapsody”, “Blitzkrieg Bop”, “The Imperial March”, “I Love Rock n Roll”, and “We Will Rock You”. At that point the band got on stage and didn’t waste any time starting with “The American Dream is Killing Me”, from their latest album, and from there, the crowd was conquered!
Then the 2nd song came in….”Basket Case”, which is the 7th song of the Dookie album. That’s where everyone over 35 came to the realisation that they wouldn’t play Dookie in its entirety. I’ll admit, there was some disappointment…right until Billy Joe let out “I think I’m cracking up”, and that’s when every single ounce of letdown magically disappeared, and we went back to rockin’! They did play half of the mythic album that was celebrating his 30th anniversary, before going into a medley of songs from the other albums, including “Know your Enemy” which featured a young fan singing the last part of the song, who seemed to have the time of their life.
It was around that medley of songs that fans were seeing what to expect for the 2nd half of the show, as the giant “arms with a heart grenade” was being inflated. We might not get Dookie, but we would get their “revival” album “American Idiot”, which the band confirmed by playing the opening riff of the title song of the album! And from that moment, everyone was back in 2004, rocking out as one, and having the time of their lives! And we weren’t the only one, for a band that has been together since 1990 (when Tre joined the band), they still have that fire, with Billie Joe mastering the art of crowd interaction at his best (with only maybe Hetfield and Vedder getting at the same level). Knowing when it’s time to get the crowd going, and when to get back to the show!
By the time the last song “Whatshername” started, I just realised that it was already over. But not before ending with the classic “Good Riddance” in which Billie started solo but was then accompanied by his band members.
And that’s how Day 2 ended, while everyone was making their way to the metro station, we all considered ourselves lucky about what we witnessed. Even though the festival changed a lot over the years, there was still a place for good ol ‘rock!!
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Sunday
Final day of the festival! After a very busy Saturday, we were ready for another great day of very various genre of music. We were just hoping for a little less heat than the previous two days.
Rapid-Fire Reviews
Ray Bull: Indie pop duo with a surprisingly good catchy rock hook to it. For their first foray in Canada, I feel like they did a great job of bringing new fans with their performance.
Marina Trench: French DJ Marina Trench managed to get the crowd going with an afternoon set. She’s also one of the last few who still use vinyl records during her set.
Victony: While waiting for my dose of rock of the day, I was enjoying Nigerian singer Victony playing in front of a very different crowd and winning a lot of them over. If you’re a fan of Akon, he’s someone you should definitely listen to.
The Blue Stones
Plenty of East Coasters are already aware of the rock duo The Blue Stones. Having played the Maritimes a few times in the past (opening for Glorious Sons, but also Area 506 and Rock The Hub), they arrived and did not waste any moments of their 40 minute set and delivered a rocking performance to wake us all up to start the day.
DIIV
Another band that maybe a few people from the East Coast remember is DIIV (they played Halifax back in 2016). The band is bringing a sound that is a mix of rock and pop, with a lot of shoegaze influences.
Amyl and The Sniffers
This was a performance that I was really looking forward to! The punk band from Australia elevated their name this Summer opening for the Foo Fighters on a few dates, came in this cloudy Sunday afternoon and went straight to the point playing songs from their latest album from 2021 (Comfort to Me), with a few new songs here and there, including “U should not be doing that”.
But bad news during their performance as the weather decided to lash out a few flashes of lightning here and there, but it was enough (for security reasons) for Evenko to put the festival on pause for about 10 minutes. After it was all clear, Amyl and her band came back to finish their set, and thankfully they were given a little extra time to finish their set. Which they didn’t waste any time, and just went right back into it to the delight of the crowd!
Stephen Sanchez
I had no idea who Stephen Sanchez was before heading to the festival, so I made my way to the main stage without any expectation and ready to learn.
And I’ll admit, I was pleasantly surprised. He’s a mix of all the genres that were present in the 50s mixed into one! He’ll rock us with his rockabilly on one song, then come out with his crooner voice for his hit single “Until I Found You” which the crowd were waiting impatiently for. He’s the kind of performance that would be hit at the Casino NB or the Cohn.
Alvvays
A few days after their headlining performance at Area506, East Coast act Alvvays got on stage for the 3rd time at Osheaga (2015 and 2018 previously). Playing mostly songs from “Blue Rev”, they managed to get the crowd going with their catchy songs and keep a lot of the Stephan Sanchez crowd even though they were in the “lets go get something to eat before the headliners” timeslot.
Hozier
Over 10 years after the success of “Take Me To Church”, Hozier managed to maintain a certain draw power with good albums, but nothing compared to the success of his first single. That’s when he released “Too Sweet” where he just exploded back into the limelight, which gave him the task of being the last act to play before Sunday’s headliner, SZA.
Unlike Noah Kahan a few days earlier, Hozier waited until the end before popping his most well-known hits, and you know what? It also worked perfectly even for people like me who only knew a handful of his songs. His songs are catchy and can rock plenty of time! And Hozier himself can get the crowd going with stories and keep them interested.
At first I thought he would be perfect for Casino NB/Cohn combo, but after seeing the crowd and passion his fans have for him, I can safely say that Hozier could easily fill up Avenir/Scotia Bank Center fairly easily.
Jungle
I then headed out for the secondary stages to catch my final band of the night, but before that I was lucky to witness the magic and fun of Jungle.
It was tough to pinpoint Jungle’s genre. It’s like if you put all the “dance” genres since the 60s, mix it all up, and you have Jungle. One moment you’ll get the big disco song, then suddenly get into some EDM beat, but not before jumping into some soul that could have come straight oft of Soul Train. And it got the crowd going for the entire set, mixing the genres, getting the people moving, wondering how the next song will sound.
They’re the type of band that has gradually been going up in terms of venues in Montreal (playing Place Bell last year), so I wouldn’t be surprised if they drop by Bell Centre the next time. How about a full Canadian tour as a bonus!?!?
Justice
Everyone was all warmed up and prepared for Justice! The french duo was at their 3rd Osheaga performance, and it was their first Canadian show since their last Osheaga performance back in 2017, and the people were ready!!
From the first note of “Genesis”, the crowd was already won over, and ready to dance till the end of the festival!
What Justice does different from most Electro acts is the way they incorporate melodies through their songs/set without losing any momentum, similar to what Daft Punk used to do (must be a French thing). People were not dancing at full speed through the entire set (like a lot of artists on the EDM stage through the weekend), but you would always bop your hand at some point during their set.
They ended their set with the live version of their breakout single “D.A.N.C.E”, and that’s how the 17th edition of Osheaga was coming to an end.
The 17th edition brought us plenty of musical talent, LOTS of them I know we will see on a bigger stage soon. I was also amazed at seeing so many different crowds, singing every single word of their favorite artists next to someone who had no idea who they were. I saw waves of people doing the “Hot To Go” dance during Chappell Roan and a few hours later, a bunch of punks starting a circle pit and singing Ruby Soho.
And I think that’s what makes this festival so great, you might not know a lot of names on the bill, but in the end, you don’t care, as you know you’ll spend a weekend listening and discovering new music, which might become your favorite the moment you come back home.