At Fairmount Theatre, the lights dropped and the room snapped to attention. Model/Actriz had returned to Montreal, and Montreal was ready. The New York quartet has built something of a rapport with this city, each visit bigger and wilder than the last. When I saw them two years ago, they packed L’Escogriffe into a sweaty, sold-out frenzy. Now, touring behind their second album Pirouette, they’d graduated to a larger venue but kept the same raw voltage.
From the first notes, it was clear the band had sharpened their edge. Their sound, a combustible mix of post-punk tension, noise-rock abrasion, and club-ready rhythm, hit like static electricity coursing through the room. Cole Haden emerged dressed in something between couture and controlled chaos, immediately launching into “Vespers” with the kind of physicality that makes performance feel like possession. He slinked, leapt, and spun as though rhythm itself had taken human form.
Then came “Amaranth,” and the band locked into a groove so tight it felt like a trapdoor opening beneath your feet. Haden’s vocals slid from whisper to scream while Ruben Radlauer’s bass and Aaron Shapiro’s drums formed an unshakeable foundation. Jack Wetmore’s guitar work carved jagged shapes through the low end, precise but never safe.
Haden has often cited Lady Gaga as a major influence, and the comparison is apt, though he brings that theatrical abandon and self-aware glamour into a rock setting that rarely accommodates either. Call him Sir Gaga if you like. There were costume changes, choreography that felt like seduction and confrontation braided together, and moments where he seemed to discover his own show as it unfolded. But nothing felt rehearsed. Every gesture, every grin, was born of the moment.
The set moved like a living organism. “Mosquito” buzzed with mechanical menace, setting bodies in motion across the floor. “Cinderella” turned vulnerability into spectacle, its fairy-tale imagery refracted through strobes and sweat. A few fans pressed against the stage sang along word for word while others closed their eyes and let the low end take over. The band thrives in that space between connection and chaos, feeding on the noise they create together.
A couple of times, Haden leapt from the stage and disappeared into the crowd. Phones went up, then down again when people realized they’d rather live it than document it. His voice carried from somewhere near the sound booth, echoing off the walls before he reappeared at the front, flushed and laughing. When “Diva” kicked in, the room turned feral.
Even during quieter moments, the tension held. “Sun In” offered a flicker of shimmering melancholy, a brief tenderness before “Pure Mode” tore everything wide open again. Shapiro’s drumming became relentless, Radlauer’s bass a physical force, and Wetmore’s guitar howled through the mix. Haden worked the stage like someone who knows exactly when to let chaos breathe and when to wrestle it back under control.
Fairmount Theatre can feel cavernous or intimate depending on who’s performing. Tonight it felt like both. The crowd was loud but focused, tuned in to every shift in tempo, every flicker of movement. The band balanced beauty and menace without losing their footing, making dissonance feel like euphoria.
“Pure Mode” closed the night on a high, a final pulse of light and volume that left ears ringing and faces glowing. Haden bowed, smiled, and said simply, “Thank you, Montreal.” It didn’t sound routine. It sounded like a promise to return.
Model/Actriz are one of those rare bands that make danger feel inviting. They fuse confrontation with play, glamour with grit, intensity with genuine warmth. And at the centre of it all, Cole Haden commands the stage like a conductor raised on punk shows and pop spectacle. Sir Gaga, indeed.
Watch highlights from the show below:
Review & photos – Steve Gerrard
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