Chet Faker @ MTelus▪

Last night at MTELUS, the room felt like it had been pulled into another dimension.

Before Chet Faker even stepped on stage, Beacon had already shifted the energy of the crowd. Their sound, electronic, deep, almost nocturnal, slowly wrapped itself around the room. There was something both intriguing and electric about their set, a sonic tension that caught the audience off guard in the best way. They did not simply open the night, they prepared the atmosphere, setting the perfect tone for what was about to unfold.

And then came Chet Faker.

Surrounded by thick smoke and sharp beams of light, the Australian artist appeared more like a shadow than a figure. For most of the performance, it was almost impossible to see him clearly. The lights were like stars. His silhouette moved between darkness and backlight, sometimes swallowed entirely by the haze. But that mystery became part of the show. The scenography played beautifully with orange, purple, and other light and shadow, creating a dreamlike world where everything felt slightly distant, slightly unreal.

With only two musicians by his side compared to all those instruments, we were waiting for six, but no, only three: one moving between drums and saxophone, the other switching between guitar and bass. And Chet Faker managed to fill the stage with an impressive intensity on piano, synth, and guitar. Together, they built a sound that moved effortlessly between jazz, groove, soul, rock, and electronic textures. One moment, the room was floating through a soft piano solo; the next, it was being hit by heavier, more electric waves.

There was something deeply hypnotic about the whole performance.

The smoke machine covered the stage like a foggy landscape, the lights cut through the room in flashes, and Chet Faker’s voice carried everything. Warm, fragile, powerful, almost haunting, his vocals had the kind of presence that makes a crowd stop moving for a second. Then, just as quickly, the room would erupt again.

Between saxophone solos, drum breaks, groovy bass lines, and beautiful vocal moments, the show never stayed in one place for too long. It kept transforming. It felt intimate, then cinematic. Soft, then explosive. Like being pulled into a strange, faraway universe and not really wanting to come back.

The Montreal crowd was fully there with him. Fans screamed his name, sang along, and threw out declarations of love between songs. You could feel how much his music has touched people, not just as a sound, but as something personal, something emotional.

By the end of the night, Chet Faker had done more than perform at MTELUS. He had created an atmosphere, a mysterious, almost magical world built from shadows, groove, and voice.

And for a moment, Montreal disappeared inside it.