After more than a year of silence, Stromae is back with a film from his tour Multitude and a song written for the series Arcanewhich is a hit on listening platforms. But there is no new album or shows on the horizon, even if the Belgian artist is “doing well”, his brother Luc Van Haver, co-director of the film, offered for free on YouTube this Saturday, at noon, confirmed to us. .
Published at 8:00 a.m.
“The music has never stopped, it continues,” said Luc Van Haver during a videoconference interview last week. “But the Stromae project, as Paul prefers to call it, including the team behind it, can take all kinds of forms. The classic form of the album and the tour is not on the agenda, but creating works that can claim to be meaningful, be original and touch people, we will continue to try to do that . »
In May 2023, Stromae had to cancel the second European portion of his tour Multitude for health reasons. The singer had time to give two thirds of the performances of this spectacular concert, with which he also set foot on American soil, notably at the Coachella festival, at Madison Square Garden in New York… and four evenings at the Bell Center in Montreal, in November 2022.
PHOTO JOSIE DESMARAIS, LA PRESSE ARCHIVES
Stromae during his visit to the Bell Center in November 2022
“It’s my most ardent memory of this tour, the visit to Montreal! says Luc Van Haver. And I’m not saying that to rub you the wrong way. » He recalls that it was in Montreal that the recording of Stromae’s previous tour was made, Square rootwhich he also co-directed.
I don’t know what’s going on there, there’s a fervor, an atmosphere! It might be more stylish to say: “Ah, at Madison Square Garden, the atmosphere was crazy…”but that’s not true. It was great for other things, but at the Bell Centre, it was incredible.
Luc Van Haver, on Stromae’s move to Montreal in 2022
Contrary to Square rootthere was no end-to-end capture of Multitude to make a film about it. The directors therefore worked from images shot by their teams in nearly 30 different locations! A kind of quilt that they assembled gradually, to arrive at a result that they consider “worthy”.
“We said to ourselves: we’ll do a piece first. We started with hell by assembling the recovered material on the left and right. There were the videographers who accompanied us, we filmed rehearsals, we even scraped together relay broadcasts at festivals…”
PHOTO PROVIDED BY MOSAERT
We can observe the impressive stage set-up in the film.
The process was “sometimes reassuring, sometimes worrying,” says Luc Van Haver. “It felt like we were facing a puzzle. There is no better metaphor. This sort of patchwork made of day and night scenes, in theaters and festivals, creates a particular identity for the film that we would not have imagined from the outset. »
From the start, the decision was to make the broadcast free, “like a gift” to thank the public for their understanding and kindness when the cancellations were announced.
“That’s why we don’t present it on a paid platform like Netflix or Amazon. The cornerstone of this release is YouTube. » The idea was also to bear witness to this tour “which had taken place”, and to leave a trace of this impressive avant-garde and ambitious show with immense technical means.
“We wanted to materialize this. The cancellations gained so much importance in the press that it somewhat eclipsed the fact that it existed and that it was presented all over the world, including at Coachella, with an imposing stage set-up put at the service of the music. Because it all starts with the music. »
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When we ask him what everyone wants to know, that is to say how his brother Paul is doing, the answer is succinct, but reassuring.
[Stromae] is fine. He’s better. Because today, we are delivering the film, which is the perfect climax to this adventure. And he’s doing doubly well, because the news is happy.
Luc Van Haver, about his brother, Stromae
The news is the stratospheric listening figures achieved by his new song My best enemywhich he composed for a scene in the second season of the immensely popular series Arcane. This piece that he performed with the singer Pomme became the most listened to French-language song in 24 hours in the history of Spotify with 5.9 million plays… and it has continued since.
“We’re like kids, we didn’t expect that at all! There was a day when we had 10 million listens at once… And there, after 14 days, we reached 100 million! Even in the light of the Stromae project, where the figures are often impressive, objectively speaking, it remains incredible. So much so that at first, we thought there was a bug in the calculations! »
PHOTO PROVIDED BY MOSAERT
A scene from the film Multitude
Does he interpret this reception as proof that people have not forgotten Stromae? “People are happy to hear it, but the series is so international, so promising. It’s a combination of elements that explains today’s success. But frankly, when we’ve finished talking, I’m going to go back and refresh, to see if it’s still streaming! »
He must be happy, since a week after our interview, the number of plays on Spotify was approaching 129 million. It shows that Stromae has not finished being at the top.
The movie Multitude is available this Saturday, December 14, at noon, on YouTube.
Check out Stromae’s YouTube page
