The Velvet Hammer doesn't look like much from the outside—just another brick tavern on Vancouver's east side where the neon bleeds into rain-slicked pavement. But inside, something electric is building. The posted capacity is 239, but somebody's clearly broken that rule because bodies are packed three-deep at the bar and the air itself feels compressed, humid with anticipation.

It's Rochelle de Lioncourt's birthday. She's 27, and she's chosen to spend it on stage in Vancouver rather than back home in Montreal with family. Pocket Rochelle is in the middle stretch of a Canada-wide tour, the kind of grueling schedule that separates artists from hobbyists. They've already conquered the east coast and pushed through the territories, playing to crowds that ranged from packed festival tents to intimate rooms where you could hear individual voices in the audience. Tomorrow they'll slip across the border for a one-off in Seattle before heading to Calgary. Tonight, they're here, and watching her take the stage with her bandmates—all easy confidence and earned command—I get the sense she's already arrived exactly where she's supposed to be. The crowd downstairs is getting restless in the best possible way.

When they finally explode onto the Velvet Hammer's small stage, the confidence is immediate and earned. This is a band that's put in the work—from Montreal Metro tunnels to national festival stages—and it shows. De Lioncourt settles at the keyboard with the kind of easy command that only comes from deep, bone-level certainty about what you're doing and why.

"Thank you!" she cries into the microphone as the crowd noise peaks and crashes. "We are Pocket Rochelle and we're going to play some songs for you."

The hush that follows is reverent, church-like. Then she hits the first notes of "Speed of Night" and the room detonates.

What Pocket Rochelle does live is hard to capture on record. On their debut album "The Path That Takes Us Home," produced by Jeff Wardell at Montreal's Berczy Street Studios, you can hear the architecture of their sound—de Lioncourt's commanding piano work, Sophia Durand's haunting violin, Martinez's ethereal guitar lines, the thunderous rhythm section of Marie Nguyen on drums and Julia O'Neill on bass. But live, it's something else entirely. The minor chords hit harder, the high register trills cut through the room like searchlights, and when de Lioncourt leans into those powerful lyrics about survival and resistance and the things we carry through the end of the world, you believe every word.

The comparisons to early Joni Mitchell aren't wrong, but they're incomplete. There's Fiona Apple in the piano work, Leonard Cohen in the apocalyptic spirituality, and something entirely her own in the way she commands a room. Her multicultural background—French father, Vietnamese mother, raised in Quebec City—bleeds into every song, creating a sound that critics have called "thunderous" and "orchestral" but that feels, in person, more like controlled chaos. Beautiful destruction.

By the time they launch into "We Meant to Say Amen," the energy in the Velvet Hammer has shifted from fever pitch to something more sacred. This is the song that's been climbing charts and soundtrack playlists, the one that grapples with faith and modern spirituality in ways that feel both ancient and urgent. De Lioncourt closes her eyes, her fingers knowing exactly what keys to play, and when they hit the fourth chorus, the band drops out entirely.

She holds a suspended chord.

The room erupts.

What happens next is one of those moments that reminds you why live music matters, why we still pack ourselves into small venues that break fire code to watch people make art in real time. The entire crowd takes up the chorus—not scattered voices but a full choir, hundreds of people offering de Lioncourt's own lyrics back to her like a gift. She steps back from the piano, arms opening wide, and there are tears streaming down her face. When the band crashes back in for the repeat, she can't even form the words. She just stands there, receiving.

Later, I’ll learn this is her thing—that she talks about songs as entities that find the people they're meant for, about art being an act of openness rather than creation. But in the moment, watching her absorb the energy of that room, it just feels true. The song found these people. These people found the song.