Quebec Redneck Bluegrass Bring Chaos to MTelus
The Saguenay rockers played an abbreviated Francos set Saturday, with miniature model trains, a globe-shaped cooler, and genuine mayhem.
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Quebec Redneck Bluegrass Project returned to the Place des Festivals at MTelus on Saturday in a tightly packed show that compressed their touring energy into one explosive hour.
Two years after their last Francos appearance, the group — whose members originally met while traveling in China nearly 20 years ago — arrived with a fresh album, Qu'acoustis-je Qu'ouïs-je Qu'entends-je (released as a board game, among other formats), and a mature turn toward themes of parenthood and mortality.
The crowd arrived dressed: chain-saw logos, hunting gear, a few cowboy hats. Lead singer Jean-Philippe "Le Pad" Tremblay noticed immediately. "Câlisse, Montréal, tu t'es mise belle à soir!" he hollered before launching "Faut c'qui folk," the album's opening track.
The stage design deserves its own paragraph. Behind the band sat a giant screen styled like an old, abandoned cottage TV set. An accessory technician manipulated miniature dioramas filmed live and projected above: a train with Labatt 50 fuel tanks, a model Loup van rolling past a table, a diminished Pantera Arctic Cat snowmobile — the technical showcase that preceded each song in what the band called their "medley of machines." It was audaciously silly and genuinely impressive in execution.
The emotional arc followed their new material: songs about parenting, the future, and loss ("P'us d'planète" with its bleak refrain "Y en aura pus, bon débarras") anchored the first half. Then naturalism reasserted itself — the Pad retrieved a bottle from a globe-shaped cooler, drank, and passed it to bandmates. Later, "Mange-moé l'pad" kicked in, and chaos properly resumed.
Alice Bro opened the show with five musicians and a bass drum, warming the crowd with a "Six-pack of circumstance" and frankly vulgar energy — exactly the tonal reset the QRBP audience needed.
The show marked the Montreal leg of the album's tour.