Expected return of the Dashing Cowboys on the Maison symphonique stage with the OSM, since the December 2020 concert had to take place without an audience. Moving return, especially, after the announcement, this summer, of the cancer which affects the singer Karl Tremblay.
It was wearing a hat to conceal his baldness resulting from his chemotherapy that Karl Tremblay approached the show. Since announcing his illness this summer, the group has continued to operate according to his treatment schedule.
In 2015, Bernard Labadie, after his remission from cancer, spoke in The duty on the fragility he called “The state of weakness”: “You can’t have a conquering attitude when you show up on the podium in that state; we need support, love and encouragement from colleagues. This is what was reflected on stage on Monday, in particular from Jean-François Pauzé, who seemed to be on top of things alongside his partner, very affected by the heat on stage in the first part, and played very effectively the regulators of crowds. In this way of savoring the moment, Karl Tremblay, Jean-François Pauzé, Marie-Annick Lépine and Jérôme Dupras achieved a balance with the public, much less unbridled and overflowing than during the first series of concerts in 2018. certainly sang a few tunes from the second part (The Manifestation, Hector’s Shack in particular), but let the musicians savor their music in a symphonic setting.
A sustainable concept
Karl Tremblay performed the same four songs solo with the OSM (Straight Ahead, The Worms, The Queen, Royal Pub) than in 2018, where we could clearly hear the finesse of the alliance with the orchestra. Pub Royal took on an unprecedented weight this year. Tremblay, who suffered a small (and only) memory lapse from the first verse of straight aheadopening a concert, underlined before Earthworms how the orchestration had given a special relief to certain songs which were not necessarily the best known.
Among them, there was, in 2018 and in the concert recorded on video in 2020, the poignant Heads upa text that has probably become impossible to sing and contain emotionally for the artist caught in a face-to-face with the disease.
Around Karl Tremblay, whose voice is intact and whose energy is efficient, the group united with fervor. The Cowboys come out of this recovery with their heads held high, and in several respects. First, the concept has not faded; we always have so much pleasure to hear these cleverly orchestrated songs. Then, perhaps by the emotion of the moment which makes these moments even more precious, the so premonitory texts seem to have taken on even more seriousness. Finally, because the source is slowly regenerating. Whether Heads up and The guy from the company left the program, two titles made their debut: Down here from the album The Antipodes (2019) and Epic Eric of the Nights of Repentigny (2021), the latter in an amusing, slightly orientalizing orchestration. Otherwise, Of a sadness and All the same housesintroduced in the program in 2020, were offered to the public for the first time.
In parallel with these two performances, Monday and Tuesday, the Cowboys and the OSM are publishing the concert recorded in December 2020 as a digital album and making it available on Vimeo as video on demand. A vinyl version is also available for pre-order.
As for the guest artists, Dominique Côté is more and more at ease and deservedly acclaimed in another dayand Karina Gauvin has still not learned the words of merchant navy since 2020. The OSM has been excellent, the show being well run and Simon Leclerc mastering his orchestrations well.