This scene, on the Place des Festivals, during the Francos, she had been dreaming of “for a long time”, confided the French singer-songwriter Pomme during her superb concert enriched by the presence of special guests, Safia Nolin, Ariel Engel (La Force), Klô Pelgag and the Boulay Sisters. The audience, remarkably numerous for a Sunday evening, allowed itself to be cajoled by the songs and the evocative voice of the musician, who chose to present a concert in the indie pop spirit of her album Consolation (2022) rather than in that of its suite of orchestral songs Seasonsreleased earlier this year.
It was, above all, the hour of consecration for the one who described herself as “the adopted child of the country” whom she has been seeing since 2015 and who considers Montreal her second home.
A first award at the Victoires de la Musique in 2020 for the album Loopholes, then that of Female Performing Artist of the Year 2021, made her one of the strong and fresh voices of French song. Since then, Claire Pommet has taken a tour of the Zénith – French theaters with between 6,000 and 12,000 seats –, a tour Seasons with a large orchestra that we hope to see stop here one of these days, then this North American tour which will bring him to sing in San Francisco and Los Angeles in a few days.
This Place des Festivals that she occupied on Sunday is a bit like her Quebec Zenith, symbolically speaking. Pomme underlined this by opening her singing tour wearing a flower-shaped hat and wearing dragonfly wings with Nelly (from Consolation), homage to the writer Arcand. Around her, four versatile musicians, the drummer playing the guitar, the bassist also, the keyboardist in turn switching to the guitar and the violinist to the mandolin. Each song was a painting in itself, a little more rock on Why does death scare you? And A millionpop and flow on Those who dream.
Three poignant voices
The concert will, she hoped, be a time for “collective consolation”, then inviting Ariel Engel and Safia Nolin on stage to perform a composition by the latter, Lesbian Break-up Song. Three poignant voices, very different from each other, singing in communion around a single microphone, with Safia strumming the guitar, thrills guaranteed. After that, Witches (taken from Loopholes), his duet with Klô Pelgag, another touching moment of complicity between the two most beautiful free electrons of modern French-speaking song.
Reminders included, Pomme will have offered seventeen songs, the time of a concert which seemed to pass too quickly because it was so good. Intense interpretations of Garden (of Consolation) And Anxiety (of the Flaws), the last dive into muddy synths, before rising to the surface to hear Sun Sunaccompanied by the Boulay Sisters, who welcomed Pomme into their home on her first night in Montreal, eight years ago.
Festival-goers savored the moment and the sweetness of this evening of gentle, but occasionally lively, songs – the musician invited the crowd to dance during The light (from the expanded version of Flaws) because afterwards, “it will be back to basics with songs about death”, including the magnificent We will burn, served shortly before the encore: “We will both burn / In hell, my angel / I have planned our goodbyes / To Earth, my angel / And I want to leave with you / I want to die in your arms. »
Jill Barber in French
Our Francos evening began in the shade, in the intimacy of Studio TD, where Ontario singer Jill Barber came to premiere the songs from her album recently released last Friday, entitled Again ! – in French in the text, please. Moving away from folk for a moment to better dive back into jazz, Barber invokes the spirit of Melody Gardot by pushing the blue note and frenchy by appropriating the songs of Piaf, Trenet, Barbara.
On paper, it’s a bit conventional, even predictable. Padam Padam, The sea, What remains of our loves ? heard so much, but it was so charming, so well executed with his trio (piano, double bass, guitar) of Toronto jazzmen who highlight his ethereal voice – this singing tour could very well have been presented in two weeks, at the poster of the International Jazz Festival.
Charming but predictable, therefore, except for one song: Ordinary, text by Mouffe, music by Charlebois. What she and her musicians did with this great classic of Quebec song is worth the price of admission to the concert alone. She transforms it without distorting it, puts it in her hand – “I am a very ordinary woman” who “makes music from yesterday” rather than “with the Big Stone” – discovers a jazz sensitivity in this suite agreements embedded in our collective consciousness. The wise audience at Studio TD had their jaws dropped. Beautiful !