The smooth soul singer-songwriter, Bruno Major brought both love and heartbreak to Toronto this week during his live show for The Tour of Planet Earth. Major is known well for songs like, “Easily,” “Wouldn’t Mean A Thing,” and viral hit “Nothing.” As he graced the stage, the crowd settled into a cozy, living room-like atmosphere, going along with his stage dawned with rugs and soft lighting.
To warm up the crowd, Bruno began the set with, “The Show Must Go On” from his 2023 album release, Columbo. He admits to the crowd that the recent album is named after his 1978 Mercedes that ended up crashing and burning during the pandemic. The song “Columbo,” depicts his clarity in the simultaneous timing of recording an album and crashing a car. He sings the lines, “Oh, Columbo, Columbo/It’s time for us to say goodbye/Hold your tears and don’t you cry/Columbo, Columbo/I’ll see you on the other side/We’ll go for a sunset ridе, you wait.” Though the song is the literal tale of the wrecked Mercedes, Major leaves room for listeners to assign their own meanings to loss, grief, and heartbreak.
As Bruno Major prepared to introduce his ninth song, Home, he reflected to the audience that while he performs the song he recalls the writing process with a warm cup of coffee and sitting peacefully in his hometown. It’s a unanimous symbol of the coziness and familiarity that comes with any version of home. Whether it’s a warm cup of coffee like Bruno or not, each face in the audience held its own story of what “home” meant to them. The warm glow in their eyes attested to the power of Major’s transcendent music.
During the middle of his set, Bruno Major opened up the floor to a song request and in the midst found a fan attending the show on their 21st birthday. Major agreed to fulfill her request for his first-ever song and cherished track “Old Fashioned,” and orchestrated a heartwarming birthday sing-along in honor of fan, Erin. Not only does Bruno Major’s stage presence and crowd interaction create an intimate space between fans and himself, but he also shared his special love for Toronto as he briefly lived in this city as well.
Major ends the night with his hit song, “Easily,” that has the entire room swaying in unison. From a birds-eye view, it was hard not to swoon at the lovers embraced in each other’s arms as Bruno Major’s vocals echo, “just because it won’t come easily/Doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try.” If home is where the heart is, mine belongs to a Bruno Major show.
