From backstage to stage | Patrick Watson comes home

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When Patrick Watson returns to Montreal for a concert, something sublime happens. The magic this week happens over four evenings, from Thursday to Monday. The Press attended the first part of these reunions at the MTELUS, but also, for two days, behind the scenes and the preparations for these memorable shows.




Reunion at home

“I hate playing house. »

It’s Wednesday, the day before the first of four concerts that Patrick Watson is preparing to give in Montreal. In a dressing room in the basement of the MTELUS, the singer testifies, with his usual frankness, of the discomfort he feels at the prospect of facing 2,300 people the next evening. A singing trick that he compares to playing a recital in front of his mother.

PHOTO FRANÇOIS ROY, THE PRESS

Patrick Watson in rehearsals at MTELUS

From the smile he displays, we suspect that it is a way of speaking. His enthusiasm during the two days of preparations will confirm this to us. But we also understand that a show at home is not like everywhere else.

I’m always embarrassed here. When I don’t know the people in the room, I can do anything and let myself go, I don’t care! When I’m doing anything and my son’s babysitter is there, it’s not the same.

Patrick Watson

The two days of preparations that await him are very busy. The amount of detail that goes into making a Patrick Watson show go as planned is impressive, from setting up the video projectors to tuning the piano. It’s an “intimate” show, but there’s something grandiose about it.

The artist does not particularly like playing in front of very large crowds. When the furthest viewer is too far away, details are lost, all gestures must be ample, he tells us. And because he pays particular attention to the smallest element that makes up his show, he is passionate about this intimacy. The MTELUS is the ideal place for the show he imagined for Montreal, he believes.

Even if Patrick Watson has kept his link with his city alive – we have seen him in recent years in an impromptu concert in a Rosemont park or during an intimate performance in the middle of a wood – this series of shows marks his first MTELUS in five years.

Since the release of his most recent album, Better in the Shade (2022), Patrick Watson stopped at a few places in Quebec, but not in Montreal. “I was tempted to get out of Montreal,” he explains. After the pandemic, things started up again much faster elsewhere in the world. And it’s important, with an international career, to work to keep it, by returning often. »

Preparations for the Patrick Watson concert

  • Wednesday mid-afternoon, there is a slight delay. Sound testing has not yet started. Since we have two days to put everything together, no one seems too worried. “We’re really a very relaxed band,” Patrick Watson tells us.

    PHOTO DOMINICK GRAVEL, THE PRESS

    Wednesday mid-afternoon, there is a slight delay. Sound testing has not yet started. Since we have two days to put everything together, no one seems too worried. “We’re really a very relaxed band,” Patrick Watson tells us.

  • In his dressing room, the singer is lying on one of the sofas and watching a video on his phone. “I haven't had a 10-minute break in a long time, so I'm just being stupid,” he says.

    PHOTO FRANÇOIS ROY, THE PRESS

    In his dressing room, the singer is lying on one of the sofas and watching a video on his phone. “I haven’t had a 10 minute break in a long time, so I’m just being stupid », he says.

  • A bubble is respectable. We find him about an hour later, as he and his technicians install the dozens of wires around his piano. The decor takes shape, we install the projectors which will animate the stage, thanks to the large white sheets spread above.

    PHOTO FRANÇOIS ROY, THE PRESS

    A bubble is respectable. We find him about an hour later, as he and his technicians install the dozens of wires around his piano. The decor takes shape, we install the projectors which will animate the stage, thanks to the large white sheets spread above.

  • A blue cap encloses his unruly hair and he wears a black turtleneck. From working so hard, the cap goes away and so does the black turtleneck. In a t-shirt, an hour and a half later, the singer finally sits down at the piano and plays Hey Jude. Some of his musicians join him on stage.

    PHOTO FRANÇOIS ROY, THE PRESS

    A blue cap encloses his unruly hair and he wears a black turtleneck. From working so hard, the cap goes away and so does the black turtleneck. In a t-shirt, an hour and a half later, the singer finally sits down at the piano and plays Hey Jude. Some of his musicians join him on stage.

  • Thursday afternoon. It's now the big day, so we're moving a little faster. Ariel Engle (La Force), whose role as backing vocalist is essential during this show, harmonizes on each piece, even takes center stage.

    PHOTO DOMINICK GRAVEL, THE PRESS

    Thursday afternoon. It’s now the big day, so we’re moving a little faster. Ariel Engle (La Force), whose role as backing vocalist is essential during this show, harmonizes on each piece, even takes center stage.

  • The string quartet, made up of Yubin Kim, Jérémie Cloutier, Robert Margaryan and Lana Tomlin, is adjusting. The singer is demanding, with himself and his musicians – Olivier Fairfield, Mishka Stein and Ourielle Auvé make up the rest of the group – but a moment of laughter and lightness is never far away.

    PHOTO FRANÇOIS ROY, THE PRESS

    The string quartet, made up of Yubin Kim, Jérémie Cloutier, Robert Margaryan and Lana Tomlin, is adjusting. The singer is demanding, with himself and his musicians – Olivier Fairfield, Mishka Stein and Ourielle Auvé make up the rest of the group – but a moment of laughter and lightness is never far away.

  • We go through the songs. The singer-songwriter's voice filled the room. A little earlier, he told us that his vocal cords are no longer what they once were. “I once sang after taking steroids because I had a [extinction de voix] and I completely lost, forever, the ability to sing certain notes. »

    PHOTO FRANÇOIS ROY, THE PRESS

    We go through the songs. The singer-songwriter’s voice filled the room. A little earlier, he told us that his vocal cords are no longer what they once were. “I once sang after taking steroids because I had a [extinction de voix] and I completely lost, forever, the ability to sing certain notes. »

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The show

A few moments before going on stage, Patrick Watson is increasingly focused, but still accessible. As often over the last two days, he chats with the guard at the backstage door, one of those who make MTELUS a pleasant place to play. “The best venues in the world are the ones with the best staff,” he says. We understand the “band not stressed” atmosphere that he described to us the day before. You don’t really feel that more than 2000 people are waiting nearby.

PHOTO DOMINICK GRAVEL, THE PRESS

From backstage to stage with Patrick Watson, as part of the first of his four concerts at M Télus on February 1, 2024.

He went on stage very quickly after the first part, which he watched from the side garden. He takes the time to settle in, camouflaged behind the curtain, before the very theatrical start of the show.

Year after year, the welcome given to the artist is particularly passionate, we receive him as a hero. The MTELUS crowd is more attentive than ever. This proximity that the artist valued is indeed present. Central to performance, even.

Because there are still two concerts left on the schedule, we won’t go into detail about what we saw and heard Thursday evening. Let’s just say that the choice of songs is delighting, that their interpretation is marvelous. That the decor is absolutely beautiful and that the lighting, like the projections, are the result of exceptional work.

PHOTO DOMINICK GRAVEL, THE PRESS

Patrick Watson on stage with Lisa LeBlanc who (surprise!) opened for her Thursday evening

He told us, he sprinkled his performance with surprises. For the two final evenings, even the author of these lines was not able to learn what awaits the public. Thursday, the first part was provided by Lisa LeBlanc, powerful and touching. Towards the end of Patrick Watson’s performance, she returns to the stage to sing a duet one of the most beautiful pieces in the singer’s repertoire. The moment is striking.

A few hours earlier, we witnessed the preparation of this beautiful interlude. On a whim, Patrick Watson had decided that he wanted Lisa to be in front of him, rather than to the side, so that they could look at each other and experience the moment together. He then told her to think only about having fun when they were going to play in front of the public. In his eyes, that’s all that really matters. When the time came, that’s what seemed to happen, as it did throughout the evening. Patrick Watson is a magician.

Other concerts in November

The shows that Patrick Watson will present with the Orchester FILMharmonique next November, still at MTELUS, will have nothing to do with what he presents on stage these days. For Patrick Watson, some of his songs take on the full scope they deserve with an orchestra. “ Beijingfor example, with an arrangement for orchestra, it becomes…” Without finishing his sentence, he makes grand gestures to illustrate the grandeur he imagines.


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