When I entered Georgia Harmer’s show this past Thursday, Nov. 6, I was shocked to look around and see no one at all. That is, before I glanced down and noticed concert-goers sitting in groups on the hardwood floors of Sala Rossa’s upstairs venue. As I walked among the crowds, I overheard conversations in both French and English as the concert melded together members of both the anglophone and francophone Montreal communities.
I took my seat among the gaggle and waited for Georgia Harmer’s opener, Sister Ray—the stage name of Toronto-based Métis singer-songwriter Ella Coyes—to begin. Eventually, she came forward and, in an instant, warmed up the space. Like rapt children, concert-goers gathered cross-legged at her feet as she sang songs from her 2025 album, Believer. While Coyes sang bittersweet lyrics from tunes such as “Animal Thing” and “Magic,” the space around us sprouted a familial feeling. Her bold intimacy and willingness to banter with the crowd transformed Sala Rossa, making it feel more like a cozy living room than a concert hall.
Before performing the title song of her album, “Believer,” Coyes shared the story behind it, recounting her relationship with a man twice her age, whom she had kissed only twice within their year-long relationship. The crowd’s whooping was followed by a laughing bite back from Sister Ray, saying, “Don’t cheer for that!”
After Sister Ray’s homey acoustic performance, the crowd warmed up and stood in anxious anticipation for the evening’s headliner: Georgia Harmer. The Toronto singer-songwriter stepped to the stage flanked by Canadian bandmates: City and Colour’s leader Matt Kelly on guitar and pedal steel, Manitoban bassist Kris Ulrich, and Toronto drummer Dani Nash.
Harmer kicked off the set with her self-proclaimed favourite song from her 2025 summer album, Eye of the Storm: “Farmhouse.” The track describes an idealized farmhouse representing nostalgia for the good days of a now-failing relationship. She sang to the audience members with a clear voice, accompanied by the tap of her black-booted foot.
Inciting her set with a song describing the comfort of a house, she picked up where Sister Ray left off, continuing the theme of home for the evening. This idea is maintained throughout Harmer’s music. She jived on stage and sang “Home early with the flu / Your parents pick us up from the airport,” from her song, “Can We Be Still.”
In an interview with The Tribune, Harmer articulated why she chose to emphasize the theme of home in her music.
“In my mid-twenties, I still feel like I am coming of age, and I think a lot of that is looking for where home is,” she said.
As a fellow Ontarian, Harmer’s music presented a specific kind of home to me, with her songs evoking a familiar landscape, even mentioning Kingston in one of her songs. While speaking with The Tribune, Harmer expressed what it means to belong in the Toronto music community. She shared that this sense of place extends beyond Ontario to Montreal, admitting to concertgoers that she had spent one semester studying at McGill before dropping out to pursue music. Harmer situates herself within the Canadian musical tradition, both in her lyrics and in the Toronto music scene, as well as in every Canadian city she visits while touring.
She expressed to The Tribune that, for her, the biggest way home shows up is in people. This was apparent in the energy she felt with bandmates, particularly guitarist Kelly, who is, in fact, her romantic partner.
“For me, a lot of my songs are about people, and they are very relational, and I think you can have homes in people,” Harmer said.
As Harmer played out her encore, the title song of the album “Eye of the Storm,” audience members danced all together, singing and stomping their feet. In that moment, it was clear that, for the night, under the blue and pink lights of Sala Rossa, we had all found a home within one another.
