Éric Lapointe’s crossing of the desert seems well and truly over.
I learned from a reliable source that he will be performing the halftime show on Monday, October 14, at Percival Molson Stadium, when the Montreal Alouettes will face the Ottawa Rouge et Noir.
The Alouettes organization must make the announcement Friday at 11 a.m.
Touchdown!
We know that a football game is divided into four parts. Like Éric Lapointe’s last year.
First, there was the interview “Facing his demons” that he gave me and which was broadcast in January on TVA. Then, secondly, the nomination by ADISQ of his most recent album I walk through my lifeas a finalist for the title of best rock album of the year. Then, his triumphant return to the Espace St-Denis on September 20, in front of a delirious packed house (I know, I was there). And fourthly, his regained sobriety, he who will have completed on October 21 a full year without drinking or consuming.
The one his friends call Ti-Cuir will perhaps score a “touchdown” on October 14.
After 30 years of career. Yes, it was in 1994, thirty years ago, that Obsessionsold more than 200,000 copies. And while we’re talking about birthdays, Lapointe will be 55 years old… on September 28.
Like any good halftime show (including the famous half time of the Super Bowl), Éric Lapointe will have to play his all and show what he has in his stomach in a very short time: 14 minutes.
In an interview with QUB on 99.5 FM last week, Éric Lapointe told me he was disappointed not to have been invited to sing at the funeral of Jean-Pierre Ferland, nor at the tribute shows to the Little King which took place this summer.
As a biographer and as a friend, I knew Jean-Pierre well enough to know that he would have been the first to reach out to Éric Lapointe. It is quite strange, and to say the least disappointing, that those around him were not as magnanimous as Jean-Pierre himself would have been. I’d say it’s… nonsense.
Thanksgiving
In Dutywe recently asked ourselves: “The end of purgatory for Éric Lapointe?” In all his interviews in recent weeks, he reiterated that he wanted to turn the page, now that he has faced justice and that his public has reconnected with him. He reiterated that he considered that he had covered the issue.
I dream that the next interview that Éric Lapointe will give will be… about music, and only about music.
There is no shortage of the Stations of the Cross, purgatory, metaphors or religious allusions to describe the journey of those who always have a cross around their neck.
I offer you one last one: October 14, the day when Éric Lapointe will play at halftime for the Alouettes, is Thanksgiving Day. And what are we supposed to do that day, according to Wikipedia? “Celebrate the harvest and give thanks for the joys received during the year.”
For Éric Lapointe, it will be the day to “give thanks” to his audience “for the joys received during the year” and celebrate the “harvests” of 30 years of career.
