FME 2025: Ada Lea Soaks in the Summer

In a hot cafe turned performance venue, Montreal-based singer-songwriter Ada Lea and her band draw a quiet, attentive crowd. Her sound is sweet singer-songwriter fare with twinkling guitar, warm bass and grounded percussion. Ada Lea’s voice, with a slight western twinge, is as warm and breathy as the last exhalations of summer itself. 

During the performance, her band is exceedingly stoic while she nervously attempts the task of stage banter. The nerves, however, do not translate to her performance in any way. She easily regains her footing once the music starts again, a brief intermission in her sonic landscape. Drawing us into vignettes of dappled sunlight and dusty roads with songs like “Diner.” In many ways, Ada Lea’s performance felt like an outlier compared to the exposition of oddities that is FME. That being said, the crowd that had gathered for her was undivided in their attention to her low-key and consummate performance. A break from the cacophonous offerings of the festival, Ada Lea invites you to take a seat and soak in the final precious moments of summer.