Bibi Club, Montreal’s own alternative dream pop duo made up of Nicolas Basque and Adèle Trottier-Rivard, has been a hero in the city’s music scene sicne they dropped their debut La soleil et la mer, so it made sense for them to open the Sirius XM Stage, where Osheaga dropped all of the local bands this year. While I think they deserve to play a bigger stage, maybe Valley or Island, Bibi Club brought their dreamwave fury; Basque laid down some noise guitar leads, as Trottier-Rivard bounced between synth, crash cymbals, and her Cocteau Twins styled vocals. I’ve seen Bibi Club before and it’s probably the closest I’ll get to a set by someone like Stereolab, which is a huge compliment.
The set was spirited, and it was cool to see passersby stop in to check out some of Bibi Club’s Polaris short-listed Feu de garde tracks and even stay for the whole show, instead of checking out Artemas or the end of Lucy Dacus. So I suppose having them on the smallest stage, right in between to others, was strategic to lure the crowd who had no idea what this Franco synth dream pop duo was all about. We from Montreal, however, know about Bibi Club and their everlasting presence, but it was nice to finally see them get some big mainstream festival recognition.
