A critical darling and regional favourite, Louis-Jean Cormier is a dearly treasured figure in Quebecois music. Currently on tour in support of his March-released Les grandes artères (a longlist-nominated album for this year's Polaris Music Prize) the former Karkwa frontman was a natural choice to headline FME's official closing concert.
Packing the space at the Agora des Arts (standing room-only in front of the stage following some seated events at the beginning of this year's festival), Cormier performed the majority of his new album before deploying some more established material from 2012's Le Treizième Étage at the end of his set, but the new songs seemed especially meaningful in light of the album's appeal to action and the festival's beginnings as an answer to a lacking music culture in the remote mining city.
Packing the space at the Agora des Arts (standing room-only in front of the stage following some seated events at the beginning of this year's festival), Cormier performed the majority of his new album before deploying some more established material from 2012's Le Treizième Étage at the end of his set, but the new songs seemed especially meaningful in light of the album's appeal to action and the festival's beginnings as an answer to a lacking music culture in the remote mining city.
