Double Shifts – Charlotte Cardin Takes Over Toronto
Montreal’s own Charlotte Cardin took over the Danforth Music Hall in Toronto on Friday night. Emerging bashfully like the girl-next-door, red flooded her stage as she walked over to a name encrusted set of keys at the centre.
Cardin drew in the crowd with a powerful start, with the first chords of Big Boy, the track that won her the SOCAN award for songwriting in 2017. Accompanied by Mat Sénéchal on synth and bass and Ben Courcy on drums, the trio created a perfect platform for Cardin’s discography that she referred to as “a bunch of love songs”.
This tour showcases Cardin’s recent EP’s Big Boy (2016) and Main Girl (2018) while treating us to unreleased tracks, peppered in between her hits. It was a treat for the attentive audience, many knowing the words to both her French and English ballads.
Cardin’s entire set invited the audience to get deeply embedded in the ambience of relatable tales of unrequited love, toxic relationships, and dirty thoughts. She takes you through a set that parallels the ups and downs of our personal relationships. And she integrates a lot of provocative tones into her jazzy poems in cautionary song Like it Doesn’t Hurt.
She urges the crowd to “get comfy.” Releasing you into upbeat bluesy rhythms in new hit Double Shifts, and then taking you to sombre places in Les Jupes. Integrating covers of popular songs Post Malone’s Go Flex and Chris Isaak’s Wicked Games into her list kept things fresh, yet familiar.
For a slender sweet speaking voice, she sings with a booming sultry vibrato that slides between notes and hooks you. Her big flirtatious personality shines through her entire performance as she plays with the audience, joking in between songs and connecting every track.
If you get the chance to see Charlotte Cardin this winter in an intimate venue, take the opportunity, the future is big for this doe-eyed Canadian artist taking North America by storm!
Charlotte Cardin Setlist, Toronto – November 30, 2018
1. Big Boy
2. New Song
3. Les échardes
4. Good Girl
5. Like it Doesn’t Hurt
6. Go Flex – Post Malone (cover)
7. Les Jupes
8. Talk Talk
9. Paradise Motion
10. Double Shifts
11. Just Like That
12. Dirty Dirty
13. Main Girl
14. Wicked Games – Chris Isaak (cover)
15. Faufille
