By: Sun Noor
The British RnB songstress made her first Montreal appearance to a sold-out crowd at Le Belmont, gracing fans to a night of laughs and positive vibes. As she nears the end of her first run of shows, Mahalia continued to bring her lively energy to the remaining crowds before culminating this leg of the “Love and Compromise,” tour.
Despite this tour marking her first set of headlining North American performances, most if not all dates sold out instantly, which made for quite the anticipated tour. In fact, many of the shows had fans lined up down the street from the venue hours before doors. Montreal was not an exception to this as getting through what appeared as a never-ending line to get into the crowded venue might have taken a good 25 minutes, nevertheless, Mahalia’s generous performance was not short of anything, making that dreadful wait in the middle-of-October cold weather worthwhile.
Mahalia commenced her set with a stripped down rendition of “Hide Out”, which shifted the energy of crowd in an instant. She managed to envelope the audience into her world at first verse. She undoubtedly radiated a strong presence to an attentive audience. The endless banter and chat breaks in between songs were definitely the best parts of the show, aside from hearing a handful of my favourite songs of hers of course. “One thing you’ll find out about me is that I talk a lot,” Mahalia exclaimed after performing the first two songs of the night, which made for quite the chatty evening since each song contained a comedic anecdote and took the time to really engage with her fans, while uplifting them with sound advice. At one point, she even answered a fan’s phone asking their friend why they were not present at the show, which was a sweet gesture. Fans were treated to an acoustic rendition of “Simmer,” which fit the ambience of the venue. She also introduced it as one of her oldest songs and favourites. Before ending things off with an encore, Mahalia gave another personal anecdote on struggling in the industry at a young age and feeling burnt out and temporarily quitting music for two weeks proceeding a rough break up. She then introduced “Sober,” which was the silver lining that came out of that rough patch. Hopefully, we’ll be seeing more of Mahalia on this side of the pond for her next tour.
Mahalia’s set list for this show consisted of:
- “Hide Out”
- “Do Not Disturb”
- “Good Company”
- “What am I”
- “Simmer”
- “He’s Mine ( a cappella)
- “Karma”
- “Honeymoon”
- “Regular People”
- “Sober”
- “Good Reason”
- “Consistency”
- “Square One”
- “What you Did”
- Grateful
- “I Wish I Missed my Ex”
Here are more photos from the show before:
Download/ Stream Love and Compromise here.
Mahalia is due to culminate her North American run at Boston’s Sinclair on Wednesday before embarking on another European tour kicking things off in her hometown of Leicester on November 14th. To view the complete list of tour dates and purchase tickets click here.
Watch Mahalia’s Colours performance of “What You Did” below:
For the Record 
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