Meet You at the Show | Montreal Concert Listings and Reviews » Fitz & The Tantrums – Petit Campus

Fitz & The Tantrums – Petit Campus – 25.01.11

January 27, 2011 in Show Reviews

Due to the abundance of shows I have been seeing lately, I was almost at the point of overdose. That was of course, until this Tuesday’s show at the friendly and welcoming Petit Campus. The acts were completely out of my genre spectrum, not having been exposed to any Motown music since my tender childhood years (minus the time when I was embarrassingly obsessed with Maroon 5′s Songs About Jane album). Nonetheless, Fitz & The Tantrums and Freedom Or Death both have this incredibly likable quality to their music, and stage presences more impressive than any band I have seen in a long time.

The venue was getting a little loud with all the chit-chat going on in anticipation for the show to start, when somehow the noise of a synthesizer and cymbals started blending into the mangle of conversations, and kept growing louder and louder until it caught everyone’s attention and all heads turned to the stage, which is when Freedom Or Death finally started their set. After a couple of songs, the quartet mentioned how they had played more shows in Montreal than they had in their own city of Toronto. I doubt that’s a bad thing. They followed the set with a more stripped down, acoustic song of theirs called “Meter Maid”. The band’s lead singer has lovely charisma and a strangely familiar face. As it turns out Sway is well established in the world of music. After a bit of brain racking and Google searching, I found out he also sang in The Morning Electric, and also does interviews on his vlog called The Hook. The guys finished off their set with “This Crowded Room” filled with what I thought were wicked counter-harmonies, and they actually managed to make the stiff Tuesday-night crowd clap along. Kudos to them!

After sound check was done and over with, the classy dressed Fitz & The Tantrums took the stage and seemed ready to wow the audience; which they did. The interesting thing about the setting was that the only string instrument in sight was an electric bass, which could be seen in the background. What really caught your attention was saxophone player James King and his shiny brass instruments. They started their set off with “Don’t Gotta Work It Out” of their debut album, Pickin’ Up The Pieces, and the sound was surprisingly big. They have that “I’m Walking on Sunshine” sort of Katrina & The Waves vibe to them, but with more grit. Noelle Scaggs is a seducing tambourine-playing beauty, and she kept the energy high dancing the whole way through the set and effortlessly singing along with lead singer, Michael Fitzpatrick. I wouldn’t go as far as calling her a back up singer though, since her vocals were powerful and certainly on even terms with the charismatic front-man.

They praised each and every one of their band members multiple times between each song, and seemed to have a lot of respect for each other. Fitz would constantly make comments in perfect french, which made the crowd love them more. The band went through the most-part of their debut album, including “Breakin’ The Chains Of Love”, “Wake Up”, title track “Pickin’ Up The Pieces”, “Rich Girls” to name a few, as well as a special request from a member of the audience for the really emotionally grabbing song ”Tighter”. They finished their set with a bang, forcing everyone to get on their feet for “MoneyGrabber”, and surprisingly enough, you could not spot one person in the venue that was seated. Actually, the crowd loved them so much that they brought them back for an encore; “We Don’t Need No Love Song”, off their debut EP. Not bad for their first ever show in Montreal!

-Sarve Wallaby A.