Klô Pelgag at the MTelus | The world according to Klô

Few artists know how to delight a crowd like Klô Pelgag does. Not only was his show at the MTelus on Thursday entertaining, touching and masterful, but it was also punctuated with surprises.

Marissa Groguhe
The Press

The lights of the MTelus are not yet extinguished when 10 musicians arrive on stage. Brass, backing vocals, guitar, keyboard and drums. The majestic notes of Our Lady of Seven Sorrows IIthe last piece of her most recent album and introduction to the show, fill the space and we instantly land in the universe that Klô Pelgag will invent for us throughout the evening.

Moreover, the singer is not even yet on stage that the applause of the crowd testifies to all her enthusiasm. Then, she makes her theatrical entrance. From a giant vagina, she emerges, her face made up, in a costume of who knows what, equipped with a long tail.

She settles down at her piano in the middle of the stage and launches into The yellow house, also taken from his most recent album. A magnificent song on recording, which takes on a grandiose dimension in concert. This is also often the case during the evening, when it mainly presents pieces by Our Lady of Seven Sorrows, as well as some tracks from his previous albums. After the superb The shadow of the cypresses, she addresses the packed room to ask: “How are you, out of 10? »

Pelgag is not one of those artists who will describe before each song the little anecdote that surrounded its creation. It’s very good like that. She communicates just enough with the crowd, lets the music do all the rest.

All that’s left is Klô and her piano to I will have long hair, another opportunity to clearly detect the accuracy of the striking voice of the singer-songwriter. Her songs are complex to interpret, yet she never distorts.

We change register to Insomnia (the show will continue like this, in sawtooth, so that the atmosphere is always electrifying after a softer moment). But first, members of Klô’s team go on stage to… take off his cock.

Carried away by the crowd

The staging of the show is provided by Baz Morais, who directed the film Live – The Spectral Show, as well as the staging of the virtual show she presented on the same date last year. High platforms support Pelgag’s attendants. The brass have been added to the orchestra since the shows presented last summer, when she was already defending this same album.

The giant screen at the back of the stage comes alive to For Elise. Klô takes the time to talk a little more to her audience afterwards, just before one of the tastiest moments of the evening. On “the quietest song of [s]on repertoire”, the sumptuous Sunshe lies down on the crowd for the crowd surfing the slowest in the history of music. It was one of her desires when she imagined this often postponed Montreal show (the idea was initially to do it on a “Yes” sign inspired by those of the Yes campaign). The floor transports her slowly, she manages to sing globally on the note despite everything, a feat.

Klô Pelgag is an offbeat artist in the best sense of the word. She has this madness that makes us want so much she is assumed and seems liberating. His art benefits from it. Thursday’s show is one of the many proofs of this.

But eccentricity is only part of what makes her an outstanding artist. Above all, Klô Pelgag is full of talent, whether as an author (these texts!), composer or performer.

And she also knows how to surround herself well. Its musicians allow the superb arrangements of this show to transport us. During The sex of the stars, we fly away on the notes which rise in the enclosure of the MTelus. The timing is awesome.

Because it’s about Klô Pelgag, we expected to be surprised, having already attended other versions of the show by Our Lady of Seven Sorrows. But she manages to exceed expectations. The concert is not the same. The artist does not repeat herself even if she keeps the same order for the songs she performs. The scenography makes all the difference – remember that the concert had been presented outside, at a festival, but not yet in theaters in Montreal. During the dance Melamine, two bodybuilders arrive on stage to dance with Klô and her singers, in tiny panties. Why this unexpected intervention? Well, why not? Everyone laughed, without really understanding, without trying to explain. That’s how it is, in the world of Pelgag.

After Where do you go when you sleep?, Fire, Saturday night to violencewe arrived at the (almost) end of the concert, with Remora (perfectly chaotic finale), just before an encore to make the floor and walls of the hall on Sainte-Catherine Street vibrate. Animalsthen Ferrofluids-flowers followed and a second encore allowed the artist to return alone on stage to cast ironin piano-voice, which nicely closed this bewitching evening, as offbeat as it is formidable.

Klô Pelgag will be on tour in Quebec in the coming months and back in Montreal, as part of the Mural festival, on June 10.