Poppy is one of those artists I still can’t explain to a stranger without sounding a little unhinged. The doll videos, the hyperpop phase, and now some of the heaviest music you’ll hear on a big stage. I stopped trying to make sense of it. It is what it is, and I’m all in for it. So when the Constantly Nowhere tour (named after a song on this year’s Empty Hands) announced an MTELUS date with Landmvrks and Thousand Below, it went straight to the top of my must-see list.
Full disclosure though. I got in late and unfortunately missed Thousand Below completely. My apologies to the San Diego band. Everyone around me said they opened the night strong, and I’ll make it up to them next tour (hopefully).
Landmvrks
I did catch Landmvrks, which felt like getting half the ticket back. The Marseille metalcore band opened with Creature into Death, and the floor went from calm to chaos in about a minute and a half. A Line in the Dust kept things ugly, in the best way. By Sulfur, frontman Florent Salfati already had the whole room, smiling the entire time like he can’t believe this is his actual job.
Then they played La valse du temps. If you want a Montreal crowd on your side, singing to us in French is a bit of a cheat code, and the room gave every word back to them. Lost in a Wave came next and the pit turned into exactly that, a big messy swell of people going over the barrier. Rainfall and Blood Red brought back the nu-metal bounce with a hint of hip-hop that makes this band such a hard act to follow. They closed on Self-Made Black Hole, which is a pretty accurate name for a song that pulled the whole floor toward the middle. Nine songs, no filler. For an opener, that set had no business being this tight. As a fellow Frenchman I’ll admit I’m a little biased here, but I can’t wait for the day they headline their own North American run with a Montreal stop. At this rate it can’t be that far off. And I’d put money on a good chunk of tonight’s room being there for them first, Poppy second. No offence meant to Poppy, of course.
Landmvrks Setlist
Creature
Death
A Line in the Dust
Sulfur
La valse du temps
Lost in a Wave
Rainfall
Blood Red
Self-Made Black Hole
Poppy
The lights went out, a scratchy tape of Constantly Nowhere started playing over the speakers, and a couple thousand people held their breath at the same time. Then she appeared, up on one of two LED platforms on each side of the stage, her drummer sitting behind a double-bass kit on the other one. She opened with have you had enough?, which is a funny thing to ask a crowd eight seconds into a show, then answered it herself with the cost of giving up. Both from Negative Spaces. Both proof that Jordan Fish’s production hits even harder in a room than it does on record.
Quick thing that matters for context. When Negative Spaces came out, I ended up in Poppy’s top 0.5% of listeners. I’m not saying this to brag (or am I?), only so you understand I walked in with the bar set pretty high. She got over it without breaking a sweat.
Concrete was the first surprise, a little throwback to the I Disagree days when the jump from sweet to heavy was the whole joke. Bruised Sky followed, that Empty Hands track where the quiet parts turn feral before you even notice. Then came scary mask, played by a band wearing matching masks somewhere between Slipknot and Sleep Token, ending on a drum solo that let the guy behind the double kit remind everyone he was the loudest man in the building.
The middle of the set is where you really see the range. Crystallized is pure synthpop and has no logical reason to work between two breakdowns, and yet there it was, working. Vital slowed everything right down, one of those rare moments throughout the set where the room just swayed. Then negative spaces stretched out into a long, noisy outro that undid all that calm, in the best way.
Eat the Hate was the quick punk sprint, barely two minutes, in and gone. Then the center’s falling out showed up and did exactly what it does on record, which is basically two minutes of pure violence. The centre did, in fact, fall out, and I happily got dragged into the middle of it. Public Domain and Time Will Tell kept things loud, and then came the one I didn’t see coming at all, V.A.N, the Bad Omens song she’s featured on. Easily the biggest surprise of the night.
The last few songs hit different. If We’re Following the Light is about as stripped-back as Empty Hands gets, and it might’ve been the prettiest moment of the whole night. Halo turned the balcony into a sea of phone lights, the only real ballad of the set and better for it, because she saved it. Then New Way Out sent us home the only way this set could end, with the song that told everyone Poppy was back in the first place, screamed back at her word for word. She barely talked all night, which I think is the right move for her. Most of the actual talking happens through the visuals and the interludes anyway. She lets the noise say the rest. Very on-brand, very her.
Last year Montreal Rocks caught Poppy at a sold-out Beanfield and called it the smallest room we’d ever see her in. One tour later she’s at an MTELUS more than twice the size, so that call is aging pretty nicely. She is very clearly still going up, and I don’t see it stopping. Landmvrks brought the Marseille firepower, and a headliner who jumps between genres mid-set without ever losing you closed it out. This was the kind of bill that reminds you why you still bother leaving the house on a work night.
The tour is called Constantly Nowhere. For one night it was very much somewhere. And if you missed it, well, you had your chance to have had enough.
Poppy Setlist
Have you had enough?
The cost of giving up
Concrete
Bruised sky
Scary mask (with drum solo outro)
Crystallized
Vital (acoustic)
Negative spaces (electric guitar, extended outro)
Eat the hate
The center’s falling out
Public domain
Time will tell
V.A.N (Bad Omens)
If we’re following the light
Halo
New way out
Review – Maxime le Huidoux
Photos – Alana Lopez (Taken at her 2025 Beanfield show)
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