Finneas last played Corona Theatre back in 2018, alongside his little sister – an artist you may know by the name of Billie Eilish.
This past weekend, however, the 24-year-old singer-songwriter was here under his own name and with his own material to perform.
He stopped in Montreal for the second last gig on the Optimist tour before heading to Toronto to close out his first North American run post-pandemic. Marinelli opened the show with an electric guitar and banter galore. This tour was his first time playing for a live crowd, yet the crowd knew every word to every song of his 30-minute set.
“FINNEAS and I have known each other since we were 14 years old and we used to dream about going on tour together so thank you for being here.”
Masked and vaccinated, Corona Theatre was packed with energy and young, screaming, merch-wearing fans — some of those camped outside the venue since 9:00am that day to belt their favourite FINNEAS lyric from the front row. Starting the show with the first song off his new album, “A Concert Six Months From Now” only seemed fitting – dreaming about seeing your favourite band live again. Who would have thought?
The audience erupted simply hearing the first note of every song. “The 90s” and “Medieval” stood out as anthems as FINNEAS effortlessly dragged the mic stand back and forth at the front of the stage.
To cut the tension in between emotional piano ballads like, “Only A Lifetime” and “What They’ll Say About Us,” the GRAMMY-award-winning artist danced around the stage, putting on a pink cowboy hat from the crowd and later wrapping a pride flag around his shoulders.
There was no room for FINNEAS to speak as the cheering did not stop. “We’ve had a lot of good crowds on this tour but this one wins.” He shook his head in disbelief throughout the night.
Sitting back down for “Love is Pain,” the floor held up BELIEVE IN US in unison – handmade signs given out to everyone earlier from a dedicated fan. Phone flashlights lit the dark room and at the end, he asked “Who did this?” and went up to personally thank the young girl in the front row across the barrier.
Red, moody lighting set in for “Around My Neck” while FINNEAS moved so smoothly around the stage from lying on top of the piano to down on his knees singing right into individual eyes, genuinely holding hands with every possible person he could reach.
He introduced “I Lost a Friend” as a reminder to value your friendships and how much friend breakups hurt just as much as romantic relationships, if not more. He encouraged us to tell our friends we love them and passionately sings over his long hair at the lit-up piano.
Throughout woos and thank-yous, FINNEAS started to close out the show, “Thank you for everything. I never thought I’d get to headline a place like this” and moved right into yet another crowd-pleaser, “Till Forever Falls Apart.” He climbed up on top of the piano to belt out the last verse and jumped into the middle of the stage with an impact.
Going out with an encore-less bang, FINNEAS left us with his highest streaming song “Let’s Fall in Love for the Night” and blew a kiss to everyone goodnight.
Ryley Remedios
Support came from the artist MARINELLI
