Watch: VOIVOD Plays First Concert With Montreal Symphony Orchestra

Canadian sci-fi metal innovators VOIVOD played the first of their two shows with the Orchestre Symphonique De Montréal, conducted by Dina Gilbert, Wednesday night (January 29) at Salle Wilfrid-Pelletie in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

The band’s setlist was as follows:

01. Experiment
02. Holographic Thinking
03. The Unknown Knows
04. The End Of Dormancy
05. Into My Hypercube
06. Forgotten In Space
07. Cosmic Drama
08. Pre-Ignition
09. Nuclear War
10. Fall
11. Tribal Convictions

Encore:

12. Astronomy Domine (PINK FLOYD cover)

Fan-filmed video and photos can be found below.

A review of the show, along with exclusive photos, is available at The Metal Voice.

This legendary Quebec band, known worldwide for redefining the boundaries of metal for over 40 years, will play another concert with the Orchestre Symphonique De Montréal at the same venue tonight (Thursday, January 30).

Regarding how the collaboration with the Orchestre Symphonique De Montréal came about, VOIVOD drummer Michel “Away” Langevin told The Metal Voice in a December 2024 interview: “Oh my God, I think we’ve been dreaming about that forever. But it came through a strange chain of circumstances, where I did an interview for the magazine L’Itinéraire, for homeless people selling magazines on the street, and then I did an interview with one of the journalists for the magazine, and it ended up being published online by La Presse. And then the people directing the orchestra, the organization, they were made aware of that by one of the musicians from the orchestra, which is a metal dude and he’s a fan.”

The drummer continued: “It’s funny because since my cousin Richard Langevin is married to Diane Dufresne, a famous singer from Montreal, and she had done the orchestra before, so they got in touch with him, because I was mentioning him in the article because he showed me how to draw. [Laughs] And anyhow, they phoned Richard, my cousin, and he phoned my mother. [Laughs] And when I came back from touring with VOIVOD, I had a message on my answering machine saying that the orchestra were looking for us. So, quite amazing.”

Langevin added: “We didn’t approach [the orchestra], but we always talked about either doing symphonic shows or doing a soundtrack for a sci-fi movie or something like that. It’s part of the dreams we have.”

VOIVOD guitarist Daniel “Chewy” Mongrain >, who previously wrote an eight-minute arrangement for the brass quintet that performed with VOIVOD at the Montreal International Jazz Festival (Festival International de Jazz de Montréal) in June 2019, went on to say that the collaboration with the Orchestre Symphonique De Montréal is “a dream come true.”

“I never tried to write for a whole orchestra,” he explained. “I know a little bit about it, studying orchestration at university and knowing my music theory and all that. But what happened is that my help with the project was to provide the music sheets to the arranger, Hugo Bégin. He did an amazing work. He took the music sheet that I wrote for guitar and bass. So he had a template to work on. And so he orchestrated it for the whole orchestra and added his own color to it. And it’s very efficient. It’s like a movie soundtrack, like the movie we used to watch, like ‘Planet Of The Apes’ and ‘Ben-Hur’ and ‘Mad Max’ and all that. VOIVOD has been influenced since the beginning by those movies, so you can hear it, but with the whole orchestra, it’s very exciting. So I exchanged a lot of e-mails and messages with Hugo, the arranger, and we worked really hard on it and he was really, really fast and efficient. And until the last minute, the last day, there was little modifications here and there, but it’s gonna be amazing. It’s a dream come true, but it’s so big that you only imagine something like that in your wildest dreams, but you know it’s not gonna happen. So this is just a life-changing experience, a bonus in a career. It’s gonna be grandiose.”

Added Langevin: “We’re also gonna put a lot of work into the visuals with a company called Noisy Head. They’re really high tech. It’s gonna be spectacular. They did stuff for Lizzo or CHEMICAL BROTHERS. And also they did a symphonic show with the music of Harmonium. And so, yeah, it’s gonna be pretty sci-fi visually as well.”

For more information, visit www.osm.ca.

VOIVOD is a Canadian heavy metal band from Jonquière, Québec. Their musical style has changed several times since the band’s origin in the early 1980s. Starting out as a speed metal band, VOIVOD have added a mix of progressive metal and thrash metal to create their own unique metal style, and are credited as one of the “big four” Canadian thrash metal bands, along with SACRIFICE, RAZOR and ANNIHILATOR. They are considered by many as one of the most influential metal bands from the ’80s, influencing and gaining praise from multiple bands and across numerous genres.

VOIVOD found mainstream success in the late 1980s with their fifth studio album, “Nothingface” (1989),which is the band’s only album to enter The Billboard 200 chart, peaking at number 114.

As previously reported, VOIVOD‘s long-awaited official documentary, “We Are Connected”, received its world premiere on July 29, 2024 at the Fantasia International Film Festival in Montreal, Quebec. Canada.

“We Are Connected” dives deep into the 40-plus-year legacy of one of the most original and influential metal bands in history. From their explosive beginnings in Jonquière to their groundbreaking global journey, VOIVOD‘s story is one of unparalleled creativity, resilience, and evolution. The film covers VOIVOD‘s history from unlikely origins in northern Québec at the height of the Cold War to underground success to sharing tours and stages with IRON MAIDEN, RUSH and METALLICA. Included in the documentary are high and lows throughout those 40 years, from major-label support and Billboard recognition to seismic lineup changes and an event many critics claimed to be the end of VOIVOD: the death of co-founding guitarist and composer Dennis “Piggy” D’Amour.

Directed by Felipe Belalcazar and produced with full access to the band’s archives, this film features exclusive insights and appearances by metal icons like Tobias Forge (GHOST),Mikael Åkerfeldt (OPETH),Jason Newsted (METALLICA),Zach Blair (RISE AGAINST, GWAR),Tom G. Warrior (CELTIC FROST, TRIPTYKON) and Ivan Doroschuk (MEN WITHOUT HATS),among many others.

Back in 2006, it was reported that VOIVOD had recruited Canadian documentarian Sam Dunn to helm the band’s documentary after he interviewed members of VOIVOD for his “Metal: A Headbanger’s Journey” movie.

After VOIVOD‘s collaboration with Dunn failed to materialize for reasons that are not clear, the band recruited Belalcázar, who has a proven record of delivering quality productions to millions of metal fans around the world, including the critically acclaimed Chuck Schuldiner documentary “Death By Metal”.

In early 2024, VOIVOD completed a North American tour with PRONG.

VOIVOD has been touring in support of its latest album, “Morgöth Tales”, which was released via Century Media, The Orchard and Sony Music.

The band’s 2022 release, “Synchro Anarchy”, garnered significant acclaim, winning the 2023 Juno Award for “Best Hard Rock/Metal Album” in Canada.

Once more recorded and mixed by Francis Perron at RadicArt Studio, mastered by Maor Appelbaum and produced by VOIVOD, “Morgöth Tales” includes fresh studio re-recordings by the band’s current lineup of nine especially selected, not-so-obvious picks from the band’s hyper-classy and extremely diverse back catalogue (between 1984 and 2003) as well as a brand-new song and the album’s title track, “Morgöth Tales”.