March 12, 2026
Vulgaires Machins simultaneously cause and cure depression in Montreal
Vulgaires Machins are like an auditory comic book experience.
From a lyrical and narrative standpoint, one can easily imagine the band as a cast of hand drawn, punk rock characters spewing out societal criticism with a sardonic twist. They’re also, I might add, members of Quebec’s elite cadre of pop punk royalty.
See Also: Live at Place Bell, Laval
This past Thursday, at Montreal’s Beanfield Theater, they opened up their vast repertoire of stories and performed many of their classics to a practically sold out crowd.
The young and the slightly-less-young rubbed shoulders and let themselves roll down memory lane, singing and swaying to the songs that have been like friends to them, for most of their lives.
However, before taking the topsy turvy ride that is Vulgaires Machins, I sat through Somet and Thick Glasses. Let’s crash into them first.
Somet
Before Somet even gets to play, I hear people in the crowd calling out to them by name and cheering. There seems to be a lot of local love coming from somewhere!
While their Spotify page bio indicates a ”shoegaze emo” orientation, that’s not a word that comes to mind as I listen to them begin their set. At least, it didn’t feel purely emo to me. If it was, I’d probably have had a harder time digesting it. They feels like a bit of early Smashing Pumpkins, Foo Fighters and a small half dash of Weezer, while never getting quite as loud as these bands did. Or at least, that’s what I remember and confirmed, as I listened to their 2 publicly available tracks, Sorry and Back to You.
I’m curious to see where time will bring them, stylistically speaking. Personally I’d love to hear them get more comfortable, crispier and louder. It’ll be fun to see what happens next.
Thick Glasses
A layer of instruments is peeled from the stage. People are almost crying in anticipation. The stage onion is smaller now, and Vulgaires Machins are almost up.
Quickly, the musicians of Thick glasses get on stage. Spatially, they’re taking a lot more space and this tells me they’ve been around the block a few more times that Somet.
Like a sort of heavy folk rock band with punk influences, Thick Glasses go all over the place with their range of musical inspirations. Hard to label them. The tracks were mostly slow burning, introspective grooves, occasionally injected with green day punk vibes or blast beats, for punch at the end of a track.
My impression during the show was that people who live off the grid in a forest setting and brew their own beer, would love Thick Glasses.
Vulgaires Machins
Two dudes at the front of the crowd eagerly await the band they’ve been obsessing over. It doesn’t take long for me to realize they’re huge Vulgaires Machins fans.
One of the guys points to his friend and tells me: “He’s got cut out interviews of Vulgaires machins on his wall. He really, really loves this band!” Silently, the aforementioned friend smiles and nods to me, in acquiescence of this personal fact. Almost everyone in the front row dutifully wears a Vulgaires Machins shirt.
While we speak, another layer of the stage onion is peeled away. This time, almost nothing is left and the headlining band’s setup is spacious and lean.
Suddenly, a cute theme song begins to play on the monitors, and the crowd cheers as the band enters the stage. The anticipation is almost palpable; I can feel that the crowd has been waiting very patiently for this exact moment.
Slowly, Vulgaires Machins begin their set with the melancholic, six minute track entitled ”Terminé le fun”. It’s a new song of the cheerful 2025 album ”Contempler L’abîme”. As the set’s first song, it’s perfectly ironic. The song’s meaning however, is a bit darker than the title might indicate. It speaks of a silent, inevitable disillusionment that we, as a society are facing, and the beginning of an unpredictable age of ideological polarity. It’s Guillaume Beauregard doing some of his finest writing and it got the crowd nice and depressed. Yay.
”The show can only go downhill from here,” I thought, a small half smile on my lips.
Things will be sort of alright, so worry
Despite the downtrodden musical theme, there are these jaunty, almost Beatles-esque moments that shed a ray of sunlight on the crowd. Dreamy breakouts have my mind prancing in a field- not a happy one, of course- wandering lost among tall blades of grass, soaked with the shameful urine of a terrible melancholy. Sharp blades of tough grass populate the field and I’m bleeding profusely. The pee stings my wounds. It’s a wonderful day.
That’s kind of how Vulgaires Machins make you feel. Good, but also terribly bad and a little confused.
Marking the middle of the set, Vulgaires Machins’ singer Guillaume takes a pot shot at the ”old people” sitting upstairs in the balcony. He says they’ll be playing a few older tracks from when they were young. And what better way to begin this journey than by playing the happiest song every written about cocaine addiction, ”Cocaïnomane”? This track, alongside ”Trinitrotulène” and ”La rue Déragon”, would mark the brief interlude to their début album ”Ving-Quatre Quarante”.
By this time, they had also already played one of their masterpieces, ”Triple Meutre et suicide raté”, which translates to Triple Murder and botched suicide. Singing at the top of their lungs, the crowd began the song for the band, reciting every word as thought they’d written it themselves. The song’s dark humor and confrontational subject matter is legendary. I believe it has it’s home amongst the greatest Canadian punk tracks ever written.
During the show, the idea that Guillaume Beauregard is like a Peter-Pan-Fat-Mike hybrid, but with more political acid than the latter, keeps entering my mind unbidden. Until the very end, I couldn’t unsee the uncanny similarities.
Freshly stinging of depression and hopelessness, the evening comes to a close. Not sure about anything but still feeling quite good, I spill out into the streets of Montreal alongside a euphoric crowd.
Read More:
>> Rise Against at L’Olympia, Montreal
>> Montreal’s Taverne Tour festival turns 10
>> The Offspring at Canadian Tire Centre, Ottawa
Initially, I felt weird writing this article in English. So, I’ll cheat a bit and give you my golden, French closing line. Ahem.
Après le concert de ce soir, une chose est claire: le fun n’est pas terminé pour les Vulgaires Machine. On aura pas non plus à attendre longtemps pour les revoir; ils joueront encore demain, même place, même heure. Soyez-y, les amis!
