FLYLEAF, be surprised you’re still alive

2009.11.14 – Flyleaf – Montréal@Café Campus

Lacey Mosley, Montreal

Stopping by Montreal for the very first time, Flyleaf comes to introduce their second album Memento Mori, released four days earlier. So, the fans gathered at the Café Campus to live a concert filled with emotions.

Lacey Mosley, Flyleaf, Montreal

Flyleaf, it is two guitarists (Jared Hartmann et Sameer Bhattacharya), a bassist (Pat Seals), a drummer (James Culpepper) but especially a voice, Lacey Mostley’s one. Starting the band in 2000 in the back of their garage, they got successful in 2005 with their first album, which went platinum after selling more than one million copies. What makes Flyleaf a special band is the introspective compositions recalling and wandering about the deep meaning of life under a sound of melodic metal (not symphonic contrary to the nauseous wave breaking out after the Evanescence success…).

Barely known in Europe because of a lack of support from the media and labels, it was a huge privilege for me to attend their concert in Montreal in the warm atmosphere of a little venue. As soon as the first notes of “In The Dark” begins, a flood of emotions fills up the room. Lacey’s voice really has a talent for carrying a sweet sensibility combined to an amazing power, and it creates a peculiar energy touching everyone here. This young 28 years old singer is like your dreamed little sister: fragile, we want to protect her, but she fills our eyes with wonder because of the strength of her voice and the energy she radiates on stage. A bubble surrounds her and flyes away with everyone’s heart on the rhythm of the waves she creates with the coming and going of her singing.

Each song has its own story and if “Cassie” reminds us the Columbia tragedy, “All Around Me” comes right after for the atmosphere to become deeper. As Lacey’s screaming hers “I’m alive”, each note takes a particular meaning, like stabbings willing to remind us that, the simple fact to be here tonight and to be able to appreciate every second of it is already a huge privilege. And the public is not the only one to be fully alive. The musicians are amazingly dynamics and, unlike the Lacey’s sweetness, are jumping all over the stage, creating some king of coherent paradox contaminating the crowd.
The new songs we discover tonight, like “Chasm”, “The Kind” or “Swept Apart This Dream” are perfectly mixed with the previous album’s successes (“So Sick”, “Fully alive”). And, as we know that some songs relate memorable meetings of their lives, tonight, we can also see that the subjects touch the audience a lot.

There’s a real call for hope, inspiration and dream. So “Arise and be, all that you dreamed” are a perfect conclusion to a concert which seemed to last only a few minutes because of the so comfort and comforting bubble.

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Set list :
1.In the Dark
2.Beautiful Bride
3.Again
4.Cassie
5.All Around Me
6.Chasm
7.So I Thought
8.The Kind
9.I’m So Sick
10.Sorrow
11.Swept Away
12.Set Apart This Dream
13.Fully Alive
14.Circle
15.There For You
16.Arise
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• Websites to visit:

» Site Officiel de Flyleaf
» Fansite de Flyleaf

• Songs to listen to:
» So Sick
» All Around Me
» Fully Alive
» Cassie
» Again
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TEXT + PHOTOS // FLEA

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