How Sega Bodega captivated the Mile End on a Wednesday

Salvatore Navarette, known by his stage name Sega Bodega, is a UK-based Irish-Chilean artist making waves globally in the electronic and club music scenes. On Wednesday, October 9th, he ventured over the pond and all the way to mile end for stop number six on his Tears, Tours and Sighs tour, following the release of his third album Dennis. There are some shows you step into knowing what to expect, with musicians that pay homage to familiar sounds and stage sets. This is not the case for Navarette - the musician has strayed away from genre-abiding traditions into a completely new realm, mixing elements of highland, turkish, hyperpop, etc - anything that “stuns and seduces” [Farrell, 2021]. Needless to say, there was an equal mix of pre-show anticipation and curiosity lining the crowd that evening.

As an artist, Navarette loves collaborating with peers in the electronic music scene - icons such as Bjork, Arca, Eartheater, and FKA Twigs. This ethos of collaboration was felt throughout the evening, even the day leading up to the show with him doxing himself to the Montreal Instagram followers by sharing his personal number for people to try their chance at getting on the door. In an attempt to get some friends into the concert (and admittedly, get his attention), I sent a poem to him through the aforementioned Instagram call-out. Navarette stuck to his word and responded quickly, and a few hours later we were all excitedly hopping up the steps up to the Fairmount.

    Energy buzzing from the get-go as the opener, local DJ Martyn Bootyspoon, started off mixing club classics to get the people going. But things really started to pick up when the eerie calls of Dennis [the menace] started quietly playing from the speakers - followed by smoke, the anticipatory fog-horn-like intro to “Coma Dennis”, a beat drop, and finally, Sega Bodega; freshly buzzed, clothes thoughtfully distressed, radiating energy that would extend outwards for the length of his one-man performance. 

 In my brief post-show chat with Navarette, he was quick to pivot the attention away from himself and towards his lighting director, Shaun Murphy, whom he said “creates half the show”. Although I felt that didn’t give himself quite enough credit, I couldn’t argue - the lighting production for the show was truly encompassing, something that made the Fairmount feel less like a space just a few steps off Parc and more like a foreign underground club space, something unearthly and exciting. Bright white lights shone for softer songs, angled in a way that lit Sega Bodega aglow and made the stage look heavenly one moment, contrasted with red hellish intensity the next. The lighting was too editorial to be described as rave-esque, yet too cheeky to be described as solely that. Whatever it is, for an artist whose identity pairs closely with distinctive aesthetics, the mark was matched. Aside from lighting shifts, few things marked the transitions in between songs - the set flowed fluidly with few words spoken. There was a solemn statement of “I hope I never have to write a song like this again” before the performance of “Um Um”, a song which pays respect to the late UK experimental angel SOPHIE, and a collective sing along to “I need Nothing From You”, in which he turned the microphone to his crowd of collaborators for the evening. 

Navarette’s physical engagement with the audience was also a big part of the energy of the evening, stepping off the stage and into the crowd at various points, stealing people's phones to take videos on stage, and coming out quickly after the show to say hi. It’s hard to believe this amount of energy came from just one man, who was also spinning for himself on top of doing vocals with the performance. Sure, there are elements to his sound that naturally channel this infatuating sensation - deep bass and hyper-pop-esque beats capturing the physical and mental attention of the crowd. But more than this, it felt like his ethos of connection as an artist was truly felt throughout the show. The crowd left in awe, feeling lucky that the all-encompassing experience that is the music of Sega Bodega be brought to us live - we wish him the best of luck on the rest of the tour and can’t wait to see what’s in store for him. 

1. Sega Bodega: Romeo Album Review | Pitchfork