Only two months after their last visit, Mother Mother was back in Montreal this Saturday to rock the Cabaret du Mile End. The indie rock group gained a significant fan base following the 2011 release of their album Eureka and played to a sold out venue, even this far from their hometown.The Vancouver-based band was clearly happy to be in Montreal. “We have a fickle relationship with this city,” laughed singer Ryan Guldemond onstage. “But tonight makes up for it,”
drummer Ali Siadat said about the same the night before. “The general friendly, outgoing vibe of this place is electric,” he said. “There’s something here that doesn’t exist in the same way elsewhere in Canada. We’ve played here more times than I can count and it’s always memorable.”
The band played an hour and a half long set, and ran through everything the crowd wanted to hear, old to new. The show kicked off with “Ball Cap,” an old acoustic favourite off their first album. The rest of Touch Up was well represented throughout the set, and the crowd was clearly versed in Mother Mother history, singing along to all the oldies.
But fans of Eureka, their newest album, were hardly disappointed. The opening chords to both “Problems” and “The Stand” inspired huge cheers and lured some audience members from the bar to the floor. By the time they got to hard-hitting rock track “Hayloft,” all five band members were covered in sweat.
The crowd didn’t hold back in showing their appreciation, and stomped until the walls shook. The band came back on for an encore at the end of the night, but they were still a bit too cool to let loose and dance―even during “Baby Don’t Dance,” the most frenetic blend of indie-pop-rock on the setlist.
But Guldemond knew how to keep them happy even if they weren’t dancing. Between songs, he had a little fun showing off his talent on guitar, riffing randomly for a few minutes each time with bandmate Jasmin Parkin accompanying him on the keys.
The crowd-inspired encore, from their second album O My Heart, was the slow and soulful “Sleep Awake,” with both Parkin and Molly Guldemond singing lead vocals. Drummer Siadat disclosed a little something to make the fans happy: work on a new album is well underway.
“We know what we want to aim for on the next album,” said Siadat. “The writing is all done. On Eureka, we were going for something very dense, with rich layers of sound. With still very much [of the] the pop structure, but hidden in complexity. For the next one, we want something more organic. A little bit more dark, slightly perhaps off the pop vein.”
Mother Mother played the night with the kind of energy that hung in the room even after they had left the stage after many repetitions of, “merci beaucoup.” Â Their relationship with Montreal may be fickle, but it looked like it took a step in the right direction on Saturday night.
