Last January, everyone feared that they would never see Dave on stage again. The 78-year-old artist suffered a heavy fall in his apartment. Plunged into a coma, Wouter Otto Levenbach, his real name, finally got out of it, to the great relief of his audience, anxious at the idea of never hearing him push the song again. It was bad to know him. Despite the scars still present after his accident, Dave is more than ready to walk the stages to find his fans: “When you do a passion job, it’s very hard to stophe confides in the pages of We both. The best time is when you’re on stage. After two years without a concert, I’m ready.”
Dave doesn’t really have a choice. If Patrick Loiseau’s husband loves to bring people together around his music, the latter allows him more than ever to make ends meet. The pleasure is therefore there, the obligation also: “Most entertainers didn’t have paychecks until the 1980s. I didn’t put any money aside for retirement. So I have to keep working” Contrary to what one might think, Dave does not touch the jackpot in terms of retirement: “I have a flight attendant friend whose retirement pension is exactly double mine!“
However, if he ends up earning enough money to live out his old age peacefully, Dave does not intend to give up the concerts. He will go on stage until the end, until his body does not allow him any more: “I come to make people happy, to make them have a good time. I can’t imagine myself stopping. In the 1980s, I considered opening my restaurant but I would have been unhappy not to be on stage again.”
Difficult to abandon all the people who, even today, support him and worry about him: “Every day people come up to me on the street asking me, ‘Are you okay, Mr. Dave?’ I feel like Jean d’Ormesson before his death.“Dave is therefore determined to return all their love to them by continuing shows like the one on July 14, despite the difficulties he still encounters after his accident:”I had mad stage fright. I got the lyrics wronghe continues. I find myself repeating songs that I have known for 100 years. I have balance problems […] I lost a little of my lightness but I still have some.” Dave, valiant to the end!