Hedley // 6-1-12 // Quebec City, Canada
Review by Claudia Boisvert
Life is not always all pink and fluffy and sweet. Soon enough, we all get the big picture: to get the worthy things, we have to work for them. Some obstacles are harder than others, some are easily overcome. Well, for a dedicated fangirl, distance is no excuse for missing your favorite band. Okay, as much as I can enjoy Hedley, they are not my absolute favorite band ever. However, it is my sister’s. Therefore I had no choice but to follow this said dedicated fangirl on a roadtrip to Quebec City, Canada on the first of June. This particular show should have taken place sooner, at the beginning of March, but due to illness, it had been postponed 3 months later. Needless to say, fans from Quebec were eager to finally see them!
So we arrived after a long ride only 15 minutes before the beginning, set for 7:00. As we were attending to the Colisée Pespi, which is more of a large hockey arena than a small venue, we didn’t get the stress of having to wait for hours to get good places; instead, we had assigned seats. We took place a little on the left of the center, not too high, not too far, and got a great view on the stage. For those less fortunate, the Colisée has two giant screens on each sides and totally knows how to use them effectively. But back then they were all black and remained the same for the two opening bands, unlike the lighting that was getting better every song.
Kristina Maria was the first to take control of the stage, escorted by her DJ Nasty Naz and two talented dancers. As I didn’t knew them at all, the opening act could have been a little boring. It seems like miss Maria forecasted the situation and chose to make it happen another way, as most of her songs were remixes, even though she performed her hits “Our Some Comes On” and “Let’s Play”. Interactions with the crowd were missing, but between her great voice, the dance performance and the use of popular songs, I found her stage presence very great. After a short intermission, we got nothing less than Karl Wolf to animate this second part. What do I need to say ? As always, this man totally ruled with his intense bursts of energy. When Karl Wolf is jumping all around singing his songs, you can’t do anything but jumping and singing along.
This time the interlude was longer but it permitted us to go and try to catch autographs, while avoiding being eaten alive by hordes of fangirls. We got back just in time for the lights to shut down once again. Then we waited. Quite silently. Expecting. Fixing the stage, trying to catch some sign of movement. However the action didn’t come from the scene ; it came from the two giant screens. I won’t give the surprise away, but the video welcomed us in the atmosphere of their new album, “Storms”. A thing I really appreciated was the way they made their set: it wasn’t just putting songs one after the other. It was more of a story, an evolution, using videos and animations to slowly guides us to the finale. If you add this concept to an already great performance, you’ll obtain something amazing. Exactly what Hedley is.
At this point, fans were already going crazy. My ears were painfully pierced by high-pitched screams, but I guess I didn’t care because I was screaming just as loud. No time to lose, Hedley was on scene just when the video ended and start forcefully with a mash up of songs, followed by a their single “One Life”. I knew this band has an explosive energy, especially with the singer. I’ve never been more right. You simply get so easily in the show since the very beginning ; the use of catchy and dynamic songs isn’t unfamiliar to this. Even the calmer ones, performed on a giant piano taking over the scene, were very connectable to. Light and joyful or slow and emotional, in both cases you’d just sing along and maybe try to repress those tears, which were particularly insistent during “Old School”, a song that means a lot to me. Sometimes I got this warm pain in my chest, sometimes it was a urge to laugh; most of the time, I was just carried away. But for sure, it is quite impossible to disconnect or think “man, this is boring”.
I honestly wouldn’t know what could be considered as not-so-great in this show. Heck, I don’t even consider myself as a fan of this band, I knew less lyrics than most of the crowd (though I knew a lot, thanks to my sister’s habit of blasting music all over the house). And maybe if people can debate if the performance was super exceptional or not, it’s at least 100% sure it is very very good. We could feel how much these guys were happy to be here, how much they took pleasure by doing so. They kind of repaired the favor by the end of their set, during the catchy “Don’t Talk To Strangers,” they brought nothing less than a cannon shooting t-shirts a bit everywhere in the venue. This was one of the great peak of the show, then they left on a last song. Lucky us, we got a 4 songs encore, which makes their set quite long, 18 songs.
Of this night, my only regret is having a seat instead of being on the floor with the crowd. Hedley has this little something that comes and grabs your heart and feelings, while motivating your body to move, and dance, and just live. You can’t just come to their show and get bored. They’ve got too much energy for this.
