Vincent Vallières was in the Cinquième Salle of Place des Arts on Thursday evening for the return to Montreal of All beauty is not lost, solo and minimalist show imagined long before settling into the pandemic context.
When the spectators arrived, numbering about 400, only an open grand piano and three guitars placed in a semicircle – a 6 and 12 strings as well as an electric one – were waiting to be tamed by the author. -composer.
Vallières appeared in almost total darkness, started only by a horizontal beam of light. During the first notes ofHeille Vallieres, he digresses on Rocky 3 and find out if he and his audience still have “tiger eye”.
“Getting gentrified is the worst thing that can happen to a boxer. And it’s the worst case that can happen to a singer, ”he says before biting into the self-critical rant that opens his most recent record. And his concert. “The angry kid / Your grandfather’s sweat / Your mentor’s voice / Can you still hear it?” ”
This fist, this trendy folk protest song, will be brandished on a few occasions. Every two or three pieces, Vallières tells. Is told. He will pay tribute precisely to the sweat of his grandfather, who died at the age of 56 after a “mincing” life in Asbestos, now Val-des-Sources.
He will be ironic about his bourgeois life “of quality” made of wines and cheeses without cheese before convincing himself of the essentials with Tom. “We lack nothing here, we are good. ”
From one guitar to another
Then there was the story of the guitarists in the country americana : from Cash to Dylan, from Williams to Young… So we learned that Vallières played with the 12-string Guild that Richard Séguin used during the recording of Two hundred nights an hour. “I live in a city / I kid myself a life in my own way / With a guitar and a pencil”, will then sing the interpreter from Sherbrooke on At the height of a man.
PHOTO SARAH MONGEAU-BIRKETT, THE PRESS
The lighting for the show is the work of Pascal Boily.
Across the road, the play of light and shadow – by Pascal Boily – will occupy a key place in Alexia Bürger’s staging. Blue, lunar, in a bouquet or laser, flashing: each song has its own sky.
The beam of light quickly became covered with streaks and fog for The sum, poignant autobiography. But it was rather a light smoke that enveloped in nostalgia The quiet landmark, played on the piano. “The fire is still burning / Even if it’s fragile / Out of the fog / For months and miles. ”
Vallières stayed ahead of the black and white keys to plead that Love is not for the fearful, which we were able to rediscover, with happiness, in its simplest device after so much radio traffic.
Sometimes Vallières turns into a man-orchestra; harmonica on the mouthpiece, guitar on the waist and bass drum pedal on the foot. This was notably the case during the instrumental conclusion of the Garden is dying. Add reverb and repeat effects, and the musician was a band all to himself.
The real reinforcement came during the recall. Ingrid St-Pierre lent a voice to Lili, then to We will dance in the rain, as heard on the album All beauty is not lost. What was missing? The electric tube quickdraw Time passes – clapping of the hands in support – and, all “at the end of the road”, the now classic We’ll love again, with a whole audience as a choir.
Middle-class or not, he had found the “eye of the tiger” for a moment …