Palomosa 2024 Review - The Castle

Day One

I got there early, like, half an hour into the first set. 2:30, sun is shining its a beautiful day; but at parc Jean Drapeau, the vibes are dead. At the empty main stage theres a handful of kids with raccoon tails dangling from their messenger bags huddled in the shade under the barricade, the smaller ‘Stage Jardin’ under that really cool sculpture houses a collection of cool people grooving to Andrea De Tour, the festival opener. She was a great DJ, definitely deserved a larger crowd, but there were rumors of depleted attendance for the premiering festival due to the ‘bring your friend!’ +1 addition to standard tickets the organizers announced a week before, and the sudden drop out of headliner Kali Uchis. There were large pieces of orange plastic blocking out her name on every promotional sign around, it was kind of sad. 

Things started to pick up later in the afternoon, it seemed the younger audience finally rolled out of bed, donned their Y2K outfits and came out to see Underscores, Snow Strippers, and Yaeji. Underscores played a great set, quick and hard hitting, 30 minutes alone on stage with a electric guitar, lots from last summer’s album Wallsocket. The duo Snow Strippers followed up with some new and unreleased songs, live vocals with a DJ in the back, waving around a bottle of mezcal. Yaeji DJ’d a house-heavy set they described as ‘pretend we’re at a backyard house party’, it truly felt like that, a big drop in energy from ‘we love prescription drugs’ vibe of Snow Strippers (a real sound byte they played over and over). Yaeji’s set did pick up considerably, climaxing at a remix of their new single "boo boo (don’t touch me)" complete with choreography only the realest in the crowd knew. 

By the time Yung Lean’s set rolled around I needed a break. I really meant to see him play, but by the time I heard his crowd screaming I was midway through a disappointing pulled pork panini - Montreal, we need better food trucks - I later learned that Yung Lean did play the 360 Remix from Charli XCX’s Brat, which was one of my main reasons for attending Palomosa, but a CJLO volunteer’s gotta eat and take a break from the Zoomer crowd that all seemed to be in on a joke I didn’t understand.

Jump Source and Young Marco were great, I appreciated the smaller crowd under that really cool statue, watching the sunset and lights blink on in the city skyline. Space filled up quickly for Horsegiirl’s set, I was most excited by this and enjoyed it the most, the audience was older and queer-er than earlier in the day, at least from my comfortable spot further from the stage (more room to dance). It was my first time seeing the horse-themed DJ, yes she does keep the horse mask on for the entire set. And yes, it's a fantastic set, the perfect mix of club hardcore and throwback 2000s pop. Tiny tornados of six person mosh pits broke out along the edges of the crowd. I could see three stars in the night sky. 

To finish the night off I went back to the mainstage to see Gesafffelstein, whose elaborate raised crystalline/obeliscal DJ stage construction had been blocking part of the background video screen during the earlier sets, and the merch booth only had merch for this guy who I had never heard of before but all these people loved. Yes, I was going into it judgemental, I’m sorry. But I always experience this when I attend mainstream festivals: a certain novelty and confusion regarding straight people. They seemed so enamoured with this glitter-covered evil LCD Soundsystem guy,  but the most captivating part of his set was the lightwork because all his songs sounded vaguely the same. No hate just, I listen to SOPHIE and wasn’t in the mood to feel sucked up into Gesafffelstein’s UFO stage presence. 

I’m excited for day two, I feel the cold and rainy weather will bring out those who don’t check the weather and the adventurous ones who do. I’m curious as to how the artists will react to the chaos of Montreal falls and how I’ll feel in my high-vis rainsuit and muck boots.

Day Two

I pulled up to the festival in my construction-worker-core reflective neon orange rain suit with my feet already wet. I didn’t let myself have any negative sensory feelings because I knew I was going to spend the next 8 hours here, outside, in the rain and cold. I found my friends, did some tequila shots, and started dancing under that really cool statue to Frankie Teardrop’s DJing. It had rained so much already there were puddles on the concrete and a festival worker squeegeeing water off the stage. Nick León was next, he smoked a cigarette on stage and payed the audience no mind. So cunty. There weren’t many of us, The Dare was playing at the larger stage, which was packed with people. Yves Tumor followed up after The Dare, they used the background video screen as a projection of them on stage through some crazy video filter, which looked very cool. Their performance emanated some tension around the lead singer and rest of the bandmates, especially from the lead guitarist who plays like the last true rock star (flipping their hair more than actually playing). 

At the end of Yves Tumor I rushed to the food trucks to enjoy a Korean corndog (or, as I mistyped it on my wet phone, ‘cornsog’), and reconvened with a friend who had found a perfect spot under the statue, shielded from the rain. The smaller Jardin stage was hosting a "Club Shy Takeover," the peak of the night was LSDXOXO and Shygirl DJing together, much akin to Horsegiirl’s set of well known pop songs with hardcore and Jersey style club backing tracks. It was really fun and easy to stay warm by dancing up a storm. 

At this point in the night my feet were so soggy I wanted to make my way to the after at the SAT, I needed to take my rainsuit off so badly, but I felt I needed to stay for Jai Paul’s set. Jai Paul was one of the main reasons I wanted to go to this festival, he doesn’t tour much and hasn’t released much music, and I’ve always deeply enjoyed his leaked 2013 album. I was hyping him up to my friends who wanted to go home and he was such a let down. The band was not emitting much energy, as if they were as wet, tired, and cold as the audience, and it was clear they were not going to play any hits until the very end. In my opinion, and what I feel is customary from other bands, the hits are mixed in throughout the set, not all bunched up in the final ten minutes. His performance of their final song, "Str8 Outta Mumbai," one of my favorite songs ever, was so embarrassing. Within the first 20 seconds he turned to the sound both and signalled for them to stop the song. He said into the mic something about not doing this again for a while and that they should do it right. The band then restarted the song and it sounded different, especially the vocals, as if he wasn’t really singing it from the beginning. I’m not trying to say anything but…. I am always keeping my eye out if it looks like an artist is lip-syncing and I really hate it when it looks like they are. Its cringy. I would rather hear bad but real singing than a recording of a song I can hear for free. That’s all I’ll say. 

Afters

The line outside of the SAT curled around the block, which thankfully gave me enough time to take off my rainsuit before entering, but I did feel stupid for sticking Jai Paul’s set out instead of leaving when I wanted too. As soon as I go in I beelined to Frost Children’s set. I was imagining the crowd to be the regular Frost Children crowd of transsexual punks, wearing dirty patched jeans and spiked collars. I was a fool. I slipped into a crowd of 19-year-old girls with designer bags and bored boyfriends, immediately put my mask on, and tried to dance among the jumping hoard of girls screaming along to "Mean Girls" by Charli XCX. It felt pointed. Frost Children’s DJ set was awesome but the crowd made them feel gentrified. All during The Dare’s DJ set afterwards, there was a constant crowd push, like every horny girl on the island needed to be immediately in front of The Dare. I had my mosh pit elbows up and kept pushing girls off me to not get shoved onto a bored boyfriend in front of me, he has no idea what I was protecting him from. After a couple songs I had my fill and turned to leave and I have never struggled to get out of a crowd so much before. It’s like everyone had lost all crowd / mosh pit etiquette and awareness of the people around them. Finally free, I went upstairs to the 360 dome projection room and danced alone (mostly) for hours to DJs Mcherry, Cheba Iman, and MJ Nebreda, who were all accompanied by a cutie with glowing tattoos voguing next to the speakers. It was much too loud but I did get to hear Panic! At The Disco while watching wild fish and fractal projections on the dome ceiling. 

Overall

I found that the two stages had incredibly different vibes, with the better known artists at the larger Videotron stage  attracting larger but straighter crowds. Being there was only fun when you really knew the band playing, if you were just there to check it out, the vibes were not enticing. Generally the experience at the smaller, more DJ-oriented Jardin stage, was more enjoyable. With more room to dance, proximity to food trucks, and the city skyline, I definitely had more fun seeing the artists I didn’t know at this smaller stage than bands I was familiar with at the larger stage. It was a fun weekend and I enjoyed music festival, especially with the organizers allowing +1s on regular tickets so people who wouldn’t’ve been able to afford it were able to attend. 

Song that got stuck in my head the most: "So What If I'm a Freak" by Snow Strippers

Best set: Horsegiirl

Biggest let down: Jai Paul

Worst crowd: The Dare’s DJ set

Biggest complaint: The font on the Palomosa website 

Most ‘yay! I got to see that!’:  Yves Tumor

Jasper is the host of The Castle, nonbinary and genrefluid, Fridays at 1PM on CJLO