Gab Bouchard's Francos set confirms his place among Quebec's best

Gab Bouchard arrived at Francos de Montréal on the Main with something to prove. After playing smaller MTelus venues in recent years under his birth name Gabriel Bouchard, the "p'tit gars de Saint-Prime" had the stage to confirm what audiences have been sensing: he is among the most talented songwriters of his generation.

The performance was stripped of the grandiose staging that marked Ariane Roy's set the week prior—Bouchard let the music speak. Dressed in a blue t-shirt with a white fleur-de-lys, sporting his signature moustache, he opened with "Overdose" and immediately signalled his influences: he's been revisiting classic rock during the making of his latest album. "P'tit blues" leaned into Stones and Dylan territory, harmonica slung around his neck. His "cool band"—a dozen musicians including guest vocalist Rose Perron—moved seamlessly between early material like "Tête vide" and "L'hiver se meurt" (from "Triste pareil"), then into the psychedelic sprawl of "Pour l'instant/personne".

Perron, singing as a backing vocalist, deserves her own headline billing someday; her voice carries a presence that could anchor a full set. Bouchard seemed to acknowledge the energy in the room—a few fans in the front rows wore novelty moustaches as a nod to their idol, a detail Bouchard spotted and smiled about.

The band played with visible joy, launching into excellent improvised solos that gave the already rich arrangements room to breathe. Bouchard himself stayed focused on the material, rarely between-song banter, content to let the poetry carry the weight. A duet with Éléonore Dessureault on "Une valse pour toi" offered a moment of quiet before the set moved through "Grafignes" material—"Neige", "Pas grave", "Toutes les filles sont belles"—and arrived at the mega-hit "Tu m'connais trop bien". He closed the main set with "Enfin", rounding out all nine songs from "Encore encore". The final track, "Dépotoir", carried an almost suicidal lyric with a life-affirming message: "Even if you feel like dying / Even if things aren't going well, well / You know it's going to end up ending." Simple, direct, real—distilled Gab Bouchard.