I knew I was in for a chaotic night when I saw a Canadian flag with bbno$ cosplaying as Hatsune Miku whipping up the stairs immediately after the security check at MTelus on March 8th, 2025.
Usually, at concerts, there’s a clear demographic, but aside from the crowd skewing towards their 20s and a handful of biblically accurate Hatsune Miku cosplays, most of the cohorts of Montréal were represented. The common theme seemed to be nerds who grew into their confidence. I saw people playing Pokémon, holding leeks, swapping cosplay tips, and talking about League of Legends and Arcane.
Even bbno$ is in on it with his excessively extensive JayVik lore and cosplays, even shouting out JayVik nation onstage to thunderous applause.
Jungle Bobby opened the show as a self-proclaimed love crusader in one of the coolest jackets I’ve ever seen. He looked like a billowing cloud the way it moved when he jumped and ran across the stage. Honestly, I need the number for both of their stylists because bbno$’s Canadian tuxedo with the white wavy lines in a ’70s groovy kinda way also made me green with envy (as have most of his tour outfits, tbh).
He’s giving the Canadian chronically online version of Lil Nas X or the cleanest masc lesbian you’ve ever seen. I truly cannot wait to see him at premieres and openings. I know he would NEVER wear a plain black suit to the MET Gala, and I stand by that.
bbno$ is a force to be reckoned with. His stage presence is electrifying, and his chaos could blow up a moderately sized family reunion. I did not expect to enjoy his cover of Miley Cyrus’s “Party in the U.S.A.” as much as I did. But then again, how can you not enjoy seeing a fully grown man putting 74,528,384% effort into a song originally recorded by a teenage girl and very happily screaming, “IT’S A PARTY IN MONTRÉAL!!!!”
I’m sure there will be many, many, many babygirl-style edits of him singing it on TikTok after the tour.
His artistic choices for set design are equally chaotic but curated, as if he was trying to herd cats or go exceptionally hard at a frozen yogurt shop. He’s well known for hiring artists to animate videos for his songs, and he played them behind him as he sang. The “Help Herself” animation looked like a 2010 Netflix coming-of-age romcom with all the doodles behind him. It’s giving haywire nostalgia for a part of my life that hasn’t fully passed yet.
He’s also well known for being the butt of his own jokes. Whenever there was a pause in animated videos between songs, a DVD screensaver-style video played, and every time it hit one of the sides of the screen, it changed to a different name starting with bbno$ and then bopping into all the incorrect pronunciations of his name: BUBUNOS, BEBENOSE, BARBADOS, BBLNO$, and BBNODOLLAR.
He furthered the whimsy of the night by giving away a cookbook, which is something he does at every concert. If you want your own bootleg copy of the bbno$ cookbook for the Montréal date, you can find copies of Les 50 recettes que vous cherchez toujours sur Internet: sans scroller pendant des heures! both online and probably in several thrift stores. Don’t worry; I have photographic proof that it’s the correct book!
The cookbook winners were a pair of Hatsune Miku and Ironmouse cosplayers who had a poutine-eating contest on stage between “Welcome to Chilis” and “Edamame.” Ironmouse won the title, and I can genuinely say that I haven’t been to this chaotic of a concert since I was in high school and seeing friends or friends of friends’ garage bands.
The vibes were very much a 3 a.m. Timmies run in the back of someone’s mom’s minivan without enough seatbelts, so you’re sitting in between seats on the floor on the way to a party in the woods, and whoever has the aux cranked it up to an 11, and the whole van is shaking. There are songs about shaking ass and feeling free and invincible in between the shoulders of friends.
It’s giving a house party with a pile of shoes at the front door and a DJ who’s actually gonna make it. It’s going to a party surrounded by friends, and you know ten years from now you’ll still smile when the song of the night comes on the radio. Or just forgetting to take your ADHD meds.
If you dive deeper into the way bbno$ makes music, there is something decidedly Canadian in the way he creates, and I, for one, am digging it.
Welcome back to Canada, Mr. Bébé pas d’argent. Glad to have you back in the land of maple syrup and poutine. Please come back to Montréal soon, especially since you married that nice girl in the crowd right before you performed “Two,” and I’m sure she misses you terribly.
Setlist
- it boy
- bad girl
- sriracha
- nursery
- who dat boi
- Bad Boy
- mathematics
- lil’ freak
- i see london i see france
- mememe
- Not A Beanie
- meant to be
- antidepressants
- C’est La Vie
- Party in the U.S.A. (Miley Cyrus cover)
- Goodness Gracious
- shining on my ex
- Whip a Tesla
- Welcome to Chilis
- edamame
- help herself
- Unreleased Song
- Ticking Away
- u mad!
- two
- take a trip
- check
- Lalala
- pogo
Review & photos – Ashtyn Turner
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