From the depths, at the very top of the MTelus this Tuesday evening on Earth, we hear hearts beating. The rush. It’s 10:20 p.m. She will arrive. A great beat precedes it. Here it is. Quietly, without jumping, not spectacular, but with an open heart. The more the title song of her album progresses, the more she is mobile in her baggy pants: it starts from the Heart and it goes on along her legs, which she has big and which she lengthens on purpose. Symbol: here I am, here I am, proud, magnificent, at the top.
Four years we waited for his return. And she made her first headliner in Quebec: two consecutive evenings, twice the full MTelus for her. “You find a dream come true,” she says, and we believe her: she is on the other side of the pandemic, like us, and she crossed the ocean to feel it and let us know.
Sing, Heal, Heal
His nice kind of pulsating pop song is a hymn to life revived, from the great popular variety song, made to do good, carrying what has hurt and that we badly need to heal, until healing . A little like Françoise Hardy (which she irresistibly evokes), Clara Luciani externalizes pain and transfigures it, empties it of its dark matter and makes the present luminous.
She encourages lovers to commit themselves in Everyone (except you) “The time is now,” she says to cheers. Without playing the stage animal (which she is not), Clara struggles with naturalness and joy. Mini-choreographies, unpretentious swaying, she has fun and takes advantage of everything. Including the presence of friend Pierre Lapointe (a real beast of the stage, him!), the time to share the sublime What can we do there?, which they created together, in the tradition of the great French duets of the 1970s that were danced at suburban balls (think La Boum). The ovation is monster, the MTelus is all moved.
The heart wide open
She has a heart, Clara, and she allows us to open ours. And when the dance floor comes alive again, she’s the instigator as much as the ecstatic participant. It’s her floor, her boards, but she always seems to rejoice like a teenager at finally being at the heart of the evening of her dreams.
It won’t stop gaining in intensity, while its hits pile up like in a big game of Meccano. Too quickly, we are at the unstoppable salvo of songs to brandish and celebrate: The rest, The grenade, Breathe again! “I want to see you sweat,” she claims. It sweats everywhere, so much that it splashes. Arms outstretched, Clara shines: she could dance all night long, and so could the crowd!
And then it’s the encore, and here she is alone with her guitar. Who remakes a song from the beginning, the very suffering one Funny era. We measure. That’s where she comes from. From the time when she “did not know how to please”. A heart can also be filled…
Luis Clavis at the MTelus and outside
Everything started well. It was such an evening. Warming mission ideally fulfilled. In pale Bermuda shorts like a festival-goer, Luis Clovis had brought what was left of the sun before it went to bed. We no longer retained the general atmosphere soulfull and relaxed than what distinguished the songs from each other. Curves in the funk, choruses not bad, choirs in support. No problem. We didn’t ask for anything other than a small channel at the hips, not yet the dripping valley that Clara Luciani was going to cause along the spines. “I’m fine, I’m fine, I’m fine,” he chanted, and the crowd with him. A tad nice beach organizer, but rather welcome. Luis was not unhappy with the reaction to his harangues: the people, well-disposed, let themselves be carried away. Just enough to justify a next meeting in his sandbox.