His “hello!” sounded in the earpiece like a victory. With a small v, not to be confused with his two Victories big V, those of the consecration of last February, at the evening of the Victoires de la musique in the large studio of Boulogne-Billancourt (the musical Seine of Paris, nothing less ). Female Artist of the Year. Album of the Year for Heart. And dazzling performance ofWhere are the women ?, the disco hit by Patrick Jouvet, who found his perfect answer: they are at the top, the women of French song. Juliette Armanet, Barbara Pravi, and her. Clara. Clara big like Dalida. Clara and her six dancers, it looked like an arm of honor to the late Cloclo, the time has finally come for Clara and her Clarettes!
She giggles, amused, at the mention of little Claude François who wanted to be so giant and the anthem of the late Patrick Juvet, duly claimed and reappropriated. “It’s true that we had the best part in this evening. We were all beaming! I loved this number and this song which, yes, took on a new meaning! ” The song was not on the program of the most recent shows of the tour launched last October, but it happens to dare to Donna Summer (This is love, I feel love in French). We imagine from here one and the other of its consecutive MTelus (June 14 and 15), collective ecstasy of hungry for joy not satiated for too long.
When the appetite returns, everything is fine
The words resonate. Transatlantic echo. “Hungry for joy! That’s really it. It’s a pretty expression, I think I’ll steal it from you! » Shared joy, full buffet. “It’s true for us, on stage, as much as for everyone, we are really hungry for joy. When we started this tour, we had been two years without playing, there was an almost religious communion with the public. Something so strong, so intense, I was very afraid of having forgotten how to behave on stage, and it’s true that people didn’t really know how to behave with each other either, but after two songs , the appetite had returned. A very big appetite. »
“I want to say: we lived a historic moment. A return to life, celebrated together. It was very strong, and I think that in Montreal, it will be very strong too…” Clara Luciani in Montreal, it was in 2018, in the first part of Eddy de Pretto at the same MTelus. Sainte-Victoireher first album (after a first EP), was still brand new and she already had a little dance floor bomb in her repertoire, The grenadeand she rocked us with Eddie (the song, not the Pretto). She was not quite comfortable yet, both in her body and in the place to hold on stage. The guitar playing, the note to hold, it was already very good, but not yet assured. That’s what she’s talking about I don’t know how to please : “I don’t know how to do as well as the girlfriends / In the bars which waddle. »
Courageous and uncertain. Her relative awkwardness made her endearing, no problem in the small growing crowd of her fans, but it was clearly the residue of years of growth, to say the least dizzying: “As a teenager, and even before, I felt out of the game of seduction, too great, too fast, abnormal. I exceeded my teacher, I was not yet 12 years old, do you realize? It took me a while to understand that it could be turned to my advantage. Daring to show myself on stage was quite a step for me. People liked me, phew, I was finally able to be me, and even accentuate my greatness. Celebrate who I am. On show, now, I think I’m up to it. »
To be useful
Happy and bright. Hers the stage, hers the dance floor. “I think that in this pandemic situation, I felt helpless, and that the album Heart was my way of making myself useful. To myself and to others. My goal was to provide 45 minutes to feel better. To regain control. Thus, the love stories that end badly are less defeats (as there were on the darker first album) than decisions. When you have decided your own fate, you can dance, hope. breathe again : it is the strong title of the disc and, one says oneself, of the spectacle. “She doesn’t want to sit / It’s lasted too long / Forced immobility / Tonight life is going to start again”, she sings in her beautiful deep timbre between two falsetto refrains.
“Art has always been my refuge, and that’s where I found myself. Maybe that’s why I’m so influenced by the films of Jacques Demy, Umbrellas of Cherbourg, The ladies of Rochefort, the enchanted fable side. That’s what I tried to do, to create an enchanted parenthesis. A transportable enchantment is the best kind. Clara Luciani, Juliette Armanet (outdoor show), Barbara Pravi thus come together as a shock trio, separately and together at the same time. Where are the women ? Headlining, at the Francos. “The great” Clara Luciani, as the photographer Jean-Marie Périer said about her Françoise Hardy of the yé-yé years, avowed inspiration of the victorious singer, is almost ecstatic at the end of the line. “Going to meet again, crossing the ocean, that too is to feel alive again!” »