Montaigne | Adelaide Festival 2022 review

The powerhouse that is Montaigne was on fire in her Summerhouse concert, which was met with thunderous applause.

The Summerhouse – Montaigne. Picture: Jess Gleeson, supplied

Montaigne

Contemporary Music – Australia

ADELAIDE FESTIVAL

The Summerhouse

March 10

The powerhouse that is Montaigne was on fire in her Summerhouse concert and her strong and loyal fans in Adelaide were out in equal force.

Beginning with a near-continuous 20-minute set that had the cheers streaming into the cool night air – what a great venue the Summerhouse is – she was almost reduced to tears by the thunderous applause.

Montaigne’s ability to connect with her audience is one of the many things that sets her apart.

She launched straight into a sequence of songs about love – “from when I wrote sad songs”, she admitted later on – from her early Because I Love You to the more recent Love Might Be Found.

A laugh-out-loud story of a share house with two “vegan ultra runners” might have been the inspiration for Losing My Mind.

After a lot of smooth stuff, the quirky Pleasure was a delicious contrast.

Her new release with former Talking Heads frontman David Byrne, Always Be You, was prefaced by the story of their unlikely collaboration, from a chance conversation with a producer to a random email and suddenly, meeting online … with the potential of more to come.

“Everybody says that we get better,” she sang in Till It Kills Me back in 2016. She’s still singing it today, and getting better all the time.