Published on January 9, 2025 at 2:10 p.m. / Modified on January 9, 2025 at 2:15 p.m.
3 mins. reading
A black and white portrait of Bernie Constantin, with tanned skin, overlooks the small stage. The concert begins with Lola Berlingoa song sung by his nephew Eric, and played by his historical musicians. A little too small to accommodate the crowd present this Wednesday evening, the Entrepôt de Blignou, in his native village of Ayent, smells of smoke, alcohol and rock’n’roll. There is a lot of sadness but also a strange form of festive pleasure in the audience, a heterogeneous mix of faces from Valais or French music, and simple inhabitants of the village, young or old. Everyone is convinced that Bernie would have really liked this “brothel” and this timeless atmosphere for his farewells. For his son Jessie Kobel, who sings at the back of the room, surrounded by his family, “it’s both sorrow and a lot of pride”.
A little earlier, at the Sion funeral center, a long line stretched out to bless his coffin by sprinkling him with whiskey with a microphone as a bottle brush. Nicknamed the Alpine Iguana, Bernie Constantin died on January 2 at the age of 77, worn out by a life of excess. Appearing on American stages in the 1970s and French television sets in the 1980s, he had become a character of local legend. Barely younger, the musician Paul Mac Bonvin remembers long walks in the snow to attend the concerts of his first group, the White Angels, in the 1960s. He confides his admiration for “an old traveling companion” to whom he owes his love of rock and even his own stage name: “He was a star. When he arrived somewhere, we only saw him.”
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