All of Jean-Pierre Ferland’s classics were adorned in their finest at the Francos de Montréal on Tuesday evening, for an emotional tribute to the great singer who died in April.
Ariane Roy, Hubert Lenoir, Karkwa, Lou-Adriane Cassidy, Vincent Vallières, Marie-Denise Pelletier, Marie-Pierre Arthur, Martha Wainwright, Patrice Michaud, Thierry Larose, Soleil Launière and Adib Alkhalidey have had a string of successes under the artistic direction of Ariane Moffatt and the musical direction of Jean-Benoit Lasanté.
At the opening of the show, in front of the crowded audience at Place des Festivals, Ariane Moffatt compared Ferland from Quebec to verlan
invented in France, slang process which consists of reversing the beginning and end of a word.
Thus, she explained the workings of the language of Ferland, the one which influenced the nation, from generation to generation. “The return to the sources, in Ferland, is said, I’m coming back home “, she said.
It’s with The little king that the band started the evening, then Ariane Roy began You are my love, you are my mistress before being joined by Hubert Lenoir in the second verse, greeted by thunderous applause.
Like a true little king, with a jacket with golden fringes, Thierry Larose performed Mom your son is having a bad timeafter Ariane Moffatt explained that it was a song written by Ferland, when he was forty years old and that the place to find oneself, regardless of age, is in the depths of arms of a mother.
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When Vincent Vallières started The road 11, we understood that when we sing Ferland, the song we sing becomes ours. Throughout the performance, if each artist interpreted the work of the great songwriter by adding a few strokes of paint in their own colors, the main lines remained intact and the words very much alive.
Thus, Marie-Denise Pelletier’s voice rose to the top of notes, higher than what Jean-Pierre Ferland could have supported with his, on his cover of the beautiful Before I calm down. It’s difficult at this point to determine who the song belonged to. And perhaps Ferland therefore unknowingly bequeathed each of his texts to those who will be able to carry them for a long time.
Everyone was younger by the number of years required to return to their twenties, while Le Roy, la Rose et le Lou(p), Ariane Roy, Thierry Larose and Lou-Adriane Cassidy, supported three When we love we are always 20 years.
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Vincent Vallières, moved, during the song Listen not that.
Photo: Screenshot
Vincent Vallières spoke about his adolescence before Don’t listen to that. The age gap was big [entre le chanteur et nous]but Ferland spoke to our hearts and the heart has no age
he declared, moved.
And when he sang, with eyes full of water, the words I would like us to get married
we heard them as a prelude to We’ll love again. The torch has been passed.
Martha Wainwright offered The music Who save the life
of everyone, establishing itself as a pillar at the center of the journey of all the musicians on stage.
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Julie Anne Saumur sang while looking at the sky during the tribute to her partner at the Francos of Montreal.
Photo: Screenshot
We heard the love of a lifetime, gone forever when Julie Anne Saumur, the partner of Jean-Pierre Ferland, performed A little higher, a little further, eyes to the sky.
In a speech of great poetry, Adib Alkhalidey spoke of Ferland’s words which touched the souls of people and of the somewhat damaged roots of children from immigrant backgrounds like him, who ultimately manage to tell their stories thanks to the nuggets gold that Ferland’s songs represent.
Hubert Lenoir made everyone want to do things a little bigger, a little more meaningful, and by putting his own effort into it by performing as he did on his first album Darlene, If we got started.
I’m not going out these days, but Jean-Pierre Ferland had such a big impact on me that I had no choice but to come and pay tribute to him. Thanks JP.
We came home with Marie-Pierre Arthur who sang I’m coming back home, while the scorching heat of June was, for the duration of a song, that of the fire burning in the fireplace.
There was reason to believe that Ferland’s pieces will live several more lives.
The chance to meet the public
At the end of his life, Jean-Pierre Ferland measured the extent of his legacy, but above all, the magnitude of the public love from which he was able to benefit. We could hear it one last time, at the end of the show, on the giant screen: Thanks to music for giving me the chance to meet you
.
Even if several performers on stage had difficulty looking up at the audience to stop reading the words of Ferland’s pieces – although we can understand the stress factor of a packed Place des festivals – each song was ‘is slipped into their voices like a hand into a custom-made glove.
The show came to an end with The sun takes you to the sun and the whole troupe sang in chorus Oh! how beautiful it is from above
and it was easy to imagine Jean-Pierre Ferland, from where he is, finding the crowd beautiful and finding the music beautiful, seen from above.
