While the Vieilles Charrues are celebrating their thirtieth anniversary this year in Carhaix (Finistère), Hubert-Félix Thiéfaine has already given 40 years of his life to music. The singer-songwriter has toured it, sometimes until he was exhausted: “But it’s better, thank you”, he smiles. And out of the question to stop. “It’s serious, let’s say, that these are choices that you make as a child. And you want to be faithful to your childhood dreams. So that’s what happened for me”.
Saturday July 16, third and penultimate day of the festival, the large theater of La Coursive was full for the “unplugged” version of its repertoire. The 73-year-old singer has been filling the biggest halls for a long time. He’s getting ready to plug the guitars back in for a Zenith tour next year. But this acoustic review did him good: “Yes, I found it was as hard as doing it in front of very electric crowds. I found myself looking at myself sometimes in the late 70s when I was starting out… How hard it was to stay on stage.”
“There were also dangerous moments, when you were shot at with cans, especially in certain festivals. Each concert was an affirmation, but it was also a way of fighting.”
Hubert-Felix Thiéfaineat franceinfo
His concerts always exude the emotion carried by an audience that has never let go. “It’s true that they do a lot of work, they are beautiful people. And often, that helps. They are people who fill the room with my songs, those who finally bring them to me or people come to tell me that what I brought to their lives. Which is surprising, for me, who took the songs for buoys that were to serve me, to me.
And even after 17 studio albums, the world as it is still offers him something to write about: “Unfortunately it looks like he’s imitating what I say in my songs unfortunately. Whether it’s a pandemic or whether it’s a war, from the beginning when I dare to show others what I’ve written, it’s about that “. In 1985, Thiéfaine suffered the plasters of the first Francofolies in La Rochelle, 37 years later, he still turns, more loved than ever.