Dumas’ new dive

Nine months after the release of his most recent album Cosmology, Dumas finally presented his new show on Friday at the Cinquième salle at Place des Arts. As he begins a new tour which will last at least until May 2024, he demonstrates once again that he is a performer as spectacular as he is inventive.

It’s crazy how Dumas manages to surprise us from one show to the next. After the wonderful solo Our idealswhich he presented nearly 200 times, then the souvenir tour The course of the dayswhich stretched during and after the pandemic time, he now offers a journey into his “personal cosmology”, but completely revamped.

With a career that spans more than 20 years, successes galore and fervent fans, Dumas could sit on his laurels and deliver his songs without straining too much. But this forgets to what extent the singer-songwriter is a researcher who constantly aspires to renew himself. What he does by surrounding himself with long-time accomplice musicians – Marc-André Larocque on drums, whom he reunites with after 12 years, and the faithful François Plante on bass -, and new blood: Gabriel Godbout- Castonguay, keyboardist with an impeccable groove who has just finished touring with Les Louanges, and the prodigious multi-percussionist from The Brooks, Philippe Beaudin.

Beaudin’s presence has an absolutely captivating effect. On a carpet of synths, the percussions are juxtaposed with the drums and blend with the omnipresent bass, giving Dumas’ repertoire a percussive side, one could even say sometimes explosive, that one would never have imagined. From the first moments, as the musicians settle in the dark while we hear a dull beat like that of a heart, we feel that we are entering a world that is soaring, but also very powerful and heavy… and dancing of course, we are at Dumas all the same.

The singer chose to open the evening with three new songs, Elsewhere, Leitmotif And Everything will pass. Which are certainly excellent, but “breaking” them when he had almost never played them in front of an audience was a risk. He took it up with courage, even if we could see that he was struggling to place his voice and find his bearings. We had a little moment of worry, but we forgot to what extent Dumas is an experienced artist who knows how to put together a show like no other.

By continuing with I wander, the singer and guitarist obviously put the audience in his pocket and found his smile which spoke volumes. He had wandered off and a few songs later, he had everyone up with a single gesture. With a hectic sequence of Perfect day, Movement And Miss Ecstasythe Fifth Room was then permanently transformed into a dance floor, with only a few moments of rest until the end.

Between The Deserter from Fort Alamo evanescent and a Countdown very funk, more acoustic moments with Somewhere And Chicagoa delightful mash-up of Happiness with Close to me by The Cure, the mixture of congas and electric guitar on Nebula and the techno surge of Light blueDumas made the link between all his eras by bringing them back to the same level: that of today.

But as we are in the concept of cosmology, his songs also floated in space, a little in the darkness, enveloped in a light which essentially comes from the stage. With its lines of color (or life, or time) which parade behind, the lighting designed by François Lévesque, who already worked on the tour Our idealsevokes movement and our short passage on Earth, a theme which is dear to Dumas and which transcends his repertoire.

After the techno trance of Sun at its zenith and the collective release on Do not tell mewhen Dumas took his guitar and his luminous glasses to come stroll through the aisles and sing Vertigo, the pleasure was at its peak. “If you only knew what a long journey it’s been.” It touches me that you are here,” he said, returning to the encore for a Linoleum very gently, sung largely by the audience.

Then hearing people spontaneously doing choruses on Then thena moment that we would have liked never to end, we said to ourselves that Dumas is more than ever in the lineage of the Frenchman M, who we were able to see in Montreal this summer: a stage beast outside the common to the unifying repertoire, which focuses on shared pleasure and surprise, and which delivers an event-show each time.

“It is a privilege that you have come to dive into the unknown with us again,” he said before ending with Go Westwhich he concludes with the words “to find you” while extending his arms towards the room.

Diving into the unknown with Dumas? Whenever.