In The turn of the block, Michel Rivard celebrates 50 years of career with generosity and elegance, with some twenty songs that take him on a journey through his repertoire and through time. Surrounded by eight musicians and three singers, he offers a comfortable show in which we curl up gently.
“When it’s your birthday and you get a surprise, you have no control over what will happen. But if you’re the one who invites the people you love, you make sure they have fun too,” the singer-songwriter explains on the phone the day after the second performance of his tour. which took place on Wednesday at L’Étoile in Brossard, which we attended.
Michel Rivard, who will be performing this Friday and Saturday on the stage of the Théâtre Maisonneuve in Montreal, is relieved since he finally gave his first show last weekend in Longueuil.
This show has been my obsession for a year. Until the premiere, I asked myself: did we make the right choices? In good order ? Will the lyrics work?
Michael Rivard
After two performances, he now knows yes. Communion takes place, and he feels it fully. “It’s my party, but I look at people and I feel that they are happy too. It is sure that it is their party too, because these 50 years, I did not make them alone! »
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PHOTO DOMINICK GRAVEL, THE PRESS
Michel Rivard is surrounded by 11 musicians and singers.
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PHOTO DOMINICK GRAVEL, THE PRESS
The pianist François Richard signs the new arrangements of the songs.
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PHOTO DOMINICK GRAVEL, THE PRESS
With his longtime accomplice and member of the Flybin Band, Rick Haworth
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His only algorithm for the choice of songs will therefore have been the shared pleasure, with essentials that he has always sung, very old ones resurrected for the occasion and some lesser known ones that fit into the themes of the show. All in a sumptuous coating of new arrangements created by pianist François Richard, played and interpreted by the original Flybin Band – Rick Haworth, Mario Légaré and Sylvain Clavette – a wind quartet “which makes you breathe and gives punch” as well only three very committed choristers, in an effervescent mix of generations which gives “a joyful sound”.
Continuity
After the long almost solo tour of The origin of my species, Michel Rivard had a great desire for sharing, interaction and human warmth. Nevertheless, the music shows that bring together 12 artists on stage, it no longer runs the streets. We wonder if the singer knows that inflation is galloping and the music industry is in trouble. “To use an expression from back home… when you organize a party, you don’t look at the expense! ” He is laughing.
I have it, my age. I am 71 years old. I cannot sulk my comfort and my pleasure. It is sure that it is a big boat, but 50 years of song, that deserves that.
Michael Rivard
In this show which has its share of emotion, and where the spoken sequences are poetic and far from the stupidly didactic anecdote, we feel that Michel Rivard’s eyes are not only turned towards the past. The “nostalgia for contemplation” which makes people say that “it was better before”, very little for him. “I don’t subscribe to that. But the nostalgia of assimilating one’s past, revisiting it with a smile and seeing how it contributes to our today, no problem. »
PHOTO DOMINICK GRAVEL, THE PRESS
As usual, the singer’s interventions are very well written, funny, relevant and poetic.
Result, at the start of the show, when he continues the news The turn of the blockwritten a month ago, and Motel “My rest”, his first composition, which dates from 1972, he “remains the same guy” despite the decades apart.
“I feel the continuity. This is what allows him to walk through his repertoire without following a chronology, on a journey “loose in the furrows of time”, as he says. A beautiful long journey in fact, in two parts, which is also increasingly rare. “We tried to cut tunes to make it fit into one part, but each time we started bawling. So I decided: there will be an intermission, and we will manage so that it passes quickly anyway. »
We reassure him: I would like to see the sea at Beware of great love Passing by The Return of Don Quixote, no danger of getting bored. And Michel Rivard, he still finds his pleasure in interpreting these songs loved for so long, among other things by giving them a new patina.
I learned that from my teachers. In the same year, I had seen James Taylor, Neil Young, Paul Simon and Leonard Cohen. Each time, they made me happy by making the tunes I wanted to hear and they surprised me with new arrangements. It wrote a lesson in me.
Michael Rivard
It is still moving to see him touched by the chorus of spectators who gently intone The Seal’s Lament in Alaska at the end of the first part… when in fact, it’s not really surprising! “True, but that doesn’t mean I take it lightly. People singing together moves me. And it comes to me every time to see that she has been so adopted. »
PHOTO DOMINICK GRAVEL, THE PRESS
Michel Rivard offers a non-linear journey through his repertoire.
If Michel Rivard created this new show, it is therefore to give joy, and because he wanted to. “I wouldn’t be doing this tour if it had been more important for me to say no no, we’re going to do a show with new tunes. »
Fortunately, since the tour that has just started will last a good while: an additional one is announced at the Francos in June, venues are being added for the fall and probably even the winter of 2024. where she wants to go. And I ask for nothing better. »