Instead of a pre-show playlist, the low buzz of summertime crickets fills the sold-out Beanfield Theatre. Some concertgoers wear tiered skirts and flowers in their hair.
The lights fall; a voice played from tape narrates a poem:
“Before the bloom, you must get your hands dirty.”
Wearing large, clear-rimmed glasses, Maisie Peters opens up the second night of her North American Before the Bloom tour with “Love Him I Don’t” and “You Lost the Breakup,” backed by her tight-knit band and an added third guitarist.
Rather than previewing material from her upcoming album, Florescence, Peters introduces the evening as a retrospective of her personal and musical pilgrimage that led her there. She only plays five songs from the upcoming work, focusing instead on softer, melancholic works from her discography.
“I wanted to do something a little different this time,” she says.
The set has a plucky, folk sound. She sticks to an acoustic guitar and the evening takes on a warm, interactive tone as she walks the audience through her singles like “Audrey Hepburn,” about “wanting to go home,” and “Say My Name in Your Sleep,” which “contemplates what was and tries to make sense of the now.”
Peters is naturally funny. Introducing “You You You,” she adds, “I would never make an album without one song that makes you want to crash a car.”
The simple set design parallels her organic sound – a nightstand with a pitcher of flowers, long shadows of summer grass projected against a canvas backdrop.
The audience shows an encyclopedic passion for lyric recall. Even when she performs her debut single, “Place We Were Made” — nearly ten years old, a song about “wanting to get out” of her hometown — a healthy contingent of fans scream the words. There are no dead moments, no mid-set lulls, and seemingly no casual Maisie Peters fans in the audience.
Concertgoers are especially excited for a performance of “Yoko,” which she says she added to the setlist after resounding feedback from previous tour legs. In one of her strongest moments, she delivers an ethereal rendition of “History of Man,” a showcase of her songwriting sophistication. “But Troy hates Helen!” is the fan favourite lyric, shrieked back from the floor.
All the same, Peters performs with a shimmering control that at times seems impenetrable. She plays with the mechanics of pop performances — hair tosses, concise stage talk, ritualistic demands to sing “a little bit louder” — with a polish so exact that genuine spontaneity seems just out of reach.
Her crowd command is total. With the assistance of her keys player Tina Hizon, she teaches Montreal four eight-counts of the choreographed dance from her “My Regards” music video, joking on the beat that “boyfriends have to do it too.” This final song ends with a long musical outro — upbeat, joyous, with an undercurrent of contemplative minor chords.
Once a narrator of youthful longing, then of novelistic rage, Peters now dances to the echoes of past heartbreak, ready to face the sun.
Review – Irene Wang
Photos – Sienna David
