Busybee's Playlist

L’Escogriffe was raging with scornful ballads and an eerie feel

A small, tavern-like atmosphere radiates from a small bar, at the heart of Montreal’s St. Denis street. L’Escogriffe, French for beanpole (lanky man) is doused in hews of red, green, and yellow with candles burning at every corner of the room, reflecting off the stony walls.

A stage sits in the middle, with instruments placed all over; an array of guitars, a harp on a small table, and a drum set, where a drawing of two ravens perched on leafless tree branches stands out, and the words “Adia Victoria” written at the forefront.

Country music plays in the background, honky-tonk beats as if to make the artist feel right at home, given that she hails from South Carolina.

A smoke machine drowns the dais, setting a sinister tone.

Three men walk past my spot near the left side of the stage, taking their respective places on the platform: Mason Hickman on guitar, Jason Harris on the bass, and Daniel Closser on the drums (filling in for the band’s usual Timothy Beaty, who has just recently become a father, and was not present that night.)

The crowd’s murmurs settle down, as Closser lightly taps on his cymbals with two mallets. Hickman tunes his guitar, while Harris strums on his chords and it’s when the audience goes completely silent that the band launches into the first beats of “Far from Dixie.” (A Southern Gothic, 2021).

The glass of red wine she’s holding enters before she does, as Adia Victoria comes out the left side, clad in a long black dress, trademark straight black hair held back in a bandeau, glittery eyelids glistening under the green spotlight. And standing out from her outfit are her red cowboy boots.

“Bonsoir,” she says to the crowd in an accented, albeit fluent French as she straps her guitar to her chest. “C’est un plaisir d’être avec vous ce soir. Je m’appelle Adia Victoria, et ça c’est mon groupe!”

And thus begins Victoria’s last performance for the Canadian leg of her “Ain’t Killed Me Yet” tour.

On 16 April, the singer put on a truly riveting show, performing songs primarily from her latest LP, A Southern Gothic, that came out in September 2021.

She interacted with the audience, joking ever-so-often about the meaning behind her songs, while also stressing on some of the important messages she strives to convey.

She dedicated “Mean Hearted Woman” to “every woman who has ever been gaslit by a man, been called crazy after being driven crazy, and has had to fight back.”

No stranger to sharing her dislike for the Church, she shared her deepest thoughts when she performed songs like “Whole World Knows,” and the struggles of not believing in God, in a Christian sense.

And as most of her work is a love letter to the blues, she performed a beautiful live rendition of her single, “Magnolia Blues.”

“The Blues didn’t make me feel so alone,” she shared. “The way the Church made me feel. The Blues are sacred to me.”

One can’t write about Adia Victoria, without tipping the hat in admiration to her opening act, Lizzie No.

Singer, songwriter, harpist, and guitarist Lizzie No is one of the most promising and exciting singers in contemporary folk music. She has been sharing her music with the world since 2017, with her debut album Hard Won releasing in March of that year.

Her opening set mainly consisted of singles off that album, like “Crying Wolf,” “The Mountaineer” and “The Killing Season.”

Nearing the end of the show, both headliner and opener got together on stage to sing together Victoria’s “You Was Born to Die,” a song originally featuring Kyshona Armstrong, Margo Price and Jason Isbell.

The chemistry between the two was palpable, and the affection both have towards one another very clear. Victoria invited No to the stage by encouraging the crowd to “help her call out her little sister to come stand beside her.”

At the encore, No and Victoria also shared one mic, the former holding her harp and the latter with her guitar, and covered “The Killing Moon” by Echo & the Bunnymen.

“Something we cooked up in the van,” No chuckles.

“Montreal, you’ve been so good to me,” Victoria says, before ending her set (prior to the encore) with a live rendition of her latest single, “Ain’t Killed Me Yet.”

Adia Victoria rocked the house on April 16th, making her first ever show in Montreal a definite success.