Before I walked into MTELUS on Thursday night, I wasn’t much of a LANY fan, but after I left, I was a Stan.
As I walked into the packed venue, I was greeted by the energy-filled Conor Burns, who was performing his most popular song to date, “Mansion on a Hill.” Considering his modest number of monthly listeners, I was blown away by both the quality of his music and his stage presence. During each song performance, it seemed Conor had a trick up his sleeve to keep the audience engaged.
His dance moves were unmatched, and his voice was just as good live as it is in my headphones. Conor kept up the great performance for 20 minutes until he announced to a disappointed audience that he would be performing his last song of the night. During the performance, he went down from the stage to perform right with the fans, then made his exit to make way for Junior Varsity, who were up next.
The LA band, similarly to Conor Burns, kept up the energy and had fans mesmerized during their entire half-hour set. The chemistry between all the band members was unmatched, and the audience ate it up. The highlight of their set, with no doubt, had to be their performance of “Share Ur Feelings.” Being my personal favourite of theirs, hearing it in person was even 10 times better than usual. When heard live, the vocals on the track are so impressive that it makes you wish the song never ended. After some more great performances, the band announced that although this was their very first show in Montreal, they had been booked to come three other times, but for some reason or another, it never worked out.
After Junior Varsity played some more of their amazing discography and made their way off the stage, a curtain was lowered, and the anticipation in the venue grew tremendously over the next 20 minutes as the headliner was bound to come out at any minute. Suddenly, the music being played switched, and a low hum began to get louder and more dramatic until suddenly, a burst of light came from behind the curtain. The silhouettes of the performers began to appear one by one on the massive sheet. The crowd went wild, and after the curtain dropped and the band’s performance of “you!” started, I wasn’t able to hear myself think with how excited the crowd was.
The choice for the first song was amazing, with the entire venue chanting the extremely catchy hook word for word. The band followed up with a performance of “ex i never had” which set the tone for the quality of the music that would be played for the rest of the night. I mean, seriously, I was blown away by just how good the songs were when heard live.
Great performances of “up to me” and “It Even Rains In LA” led to singer Paul Klein announcing the presence of a special guest. The guest, being a young kid from right here in Montreal, was discovered by Paul on social media because of his fantastic singing voice and was asked to perform the 4th track, “I Pray,” off their newest album, “a beautiful blur.”
The crowd went nuts and cheered on the young artist, who absolutely killed the verse on the song, hitting every single note. Although the crowd wouldn’t have minded if the guest stayed and performed a couple more songs, he took a bow and let LANY do their thing.
During the rest of their hour-and-a-half set, not one song was similar to the last. Whether it be a lighting change, the addition of props like balloons and roses, or a change in instruments, the band knew perfectly how to keep the crowd captivated during what would typically be considered a long set. To me, the highlight of the entire show was during the performance of “Congrats,” in which the spotlights beamed down on the singer, and the lyrics of the song appeared on the screen behind them. This helped those who might not have been familiar with the song and allowed the entire venue to sing along word for word.
Throughout the show, 2 fans were let on stage to perform with the singer, and both appeared to have a blast before being brought back into the audience.
The amazing performances kept up, and the band played many more songs until “Thru These Tears,” where they pretended to leave for good but quickly came back to play three more songs, including their most popular, “Malibu Nights.” For the final performances, the spotlights were turned on once again and on the screen in the back, an animation of a night sky filled with stars was displayed, resulting in a surreal atmosphere in the venue until the very end.
As the concert came to an end, the entire crowd seemed to be sad that it had ended, but I’m sure that looking back, they’ll be more than pleased with all of the amazing memories that were created.
Review & photos – Nicolas Cantin
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