Bernhari Adds a Touch of Distortion to the L’Astral Stage
Musicians who overuse the distortion effect to create a loudness in their music are usually the ones who want to make sure that their melody travels and stays in the hearts of their audiences. Montreal-based musician Bernhari manages to pull this off.
This past Saturday, Bernahri performed at the L’Astral concert hall for Les FrancoFolies de Montréal festival. For this performance, he and his backup musicians turned up the volume on their instruments, transmitting waves of electric melodies to their audience.
Opening for Bernhari was a group named Fishbach. For the first time in North America, this France-based band fuses different musical genres such as rock and pop to purposely re-create a 1980’s sound.
Drum pads and a bass with a clean electric guitar tone were fused together to create a continuous thumping beat, giving the sound a small dose of rock. At the same time, the use of synthesizers provided fuzzy tones.
Fishbach began with a song called “Tu vas vibrer” that began with a mysterious echoing sound on the synthesizers followed by the humming noises from the background vocalists.
The electronic drum pad slowly worked its way in to create a slow-paced rhythmic pattern. Once the tempo reached its climax, the electric bass created a continuous thumping sound that changed the melody into a funky beat.
The song ended with the clean tone from a Fender Stratocaster, strumming a fast and loud repetitive chord progression.
Another piece that this opening band performed was “Night Bird (Petit Monstre).” The loud sound of the electric bass was the heart of this track; it constructed the foundational beat that other instruments followed to complete the melody.
The song began with the echoing sound of feedback from the electric guitar, followed by a heavy repetitive beat from the bass drum on the drum pad and the thumping sound from the electric bass.
The tempo of the song changes to a fast-paced melody, ending with the echo-y feedback effect from the electric guitar that was heard at the beginning of the song.
After Fishbach’s performance, Bernhari and his accompanying musicians emerged onto the stage. The group began their set with the song called “Bouquet final”, which started off with the synthesizers creating looping effect out of several musical notes. The synths were quickly joined by the joyful sound of the piano keys.
The beat began all at once with a repetitive distortion melody on the electric guitar, followed by the loud picking of the bass, the depth sound from the acoustic drum set and Bernhari’s soft mellow voice.
As all the instruments slowly quieted down towards the end of the song, the tempo changed and turned into a funky fast-paced beat, repeatedly hitting the snares and the cymbals.
Another song that Bernhari played was “Aime moi.” This song incorporated several transitions, which made it interesting to follow the melody since each rhythmical pattern was different. The transitions opened the audience’s musical horizons allowing them to discover all the impossible rhythms that can be worked into one single song.
The piece began with Bernhari’s soft voice as he played a gentle melodic key on the synthesizers. This was accompanied by a stomping drum beat that paired easily with the bass, followed by the electric guitar repeatedly strumming a muted chord.
The rhythm changes to a fast-paced beat, wherein the drummer continuously hit the snare, cymbals and hi-hat cymbal as fast as possible.
The electric guitar takes on a heavy solo with the distortion effect giving the audience a chance to rock out, followed by a fast-paced thumping noise from the bass to end the melody with a touch of rock.
The band concluded their set by replaying their song, “Bouquet final.” Each of the parts remained the same until the end when the band decided to take a different approach by uplifting the melody to a funky and rock-like drum beat that transformed into a free for all instrumental jam.
The heavy distortion on the electric guitar solo allowed the audience to absorb the hard rock melodies. The electric bass was picked as fast as possible and the fuzziness tone offered from the synthesizers and the loudness from the drums invited the other instruments to raise their volumes.
The loudness coming from each instrument intensified the track to the point where you’d think that one of the musicians may have busted their volume components.
The dynamical energy from each of the band members created a loud melody that would stay in the hearts of the audience for a long time.
Bernhari put on an energetic and electrifying performance and the loudness that came from each of their instruments amazed the audience. The dynamic energy from each of the band members created a loud melody that will stay in the audience’s hearts for a long time.
Bernhari // Fishbach // Les FrancoFolies de Montréal // francofolies.com
