Friday, July 7, 2023, 8:30 p.m., at the Musi-Café in Lac-Mégantic. People are eating, seated quietly at their table. Shortly after, Dany Flanders, the headliner of the evening, arrives. An hour later, the guests are singing in unison and there is not enough space to dance, so much so that some revelers end up going on stage to accompany the performer.
Hard to believe that 10 years earlier, on the night of July 5 to 6, 2013, a train accident would kill 47 people, thirty of whom were at the Musi-Café then located on Frontenac Street. Having become an emblem of the tragedy, the restaurant bar, of which only ashes remained, moved a year and a half later to rue Papineau in a rebuilt downtown a stone’s throw from the devastated area.
A sign of the importance of the place, Justin Trudeau stopped there after the memorial mass celebrated on Thursday. The media coverage of the last few days has been “impressive”, says Vincent Roy, a resident of Lac-Mégantic present at the Musi-Café on Friday evening. Many were there, like him, to clear their minds after a trying week.
“Take the Torch”
This high festive place of the region occupies a place of choice in the hearts of the citizens. Katie Stapels is well aware of this, she who bought the Musi-Café in early 2022 with her husband Martin Lacombe, a native of Lac-Mégantic, and their business partner, chef David Biron.
“We didn’t come here for the Musi-Café, she says, but it was while living here that we realized that it was really a very important place for Mégantic. This is how they took over from Yannick Gagné, who was the owner at the time of the tragedy. The latter confided to Duty, in 2014, that the reconstruction of the restaurant was difficult. However, he remains involved in the programming of the shows.
Over the past few weeks, Katie Stapels has experienced a deluge of emotions as the new owner of an iconic place, but also as a resident who was not living in town at the time of the accident. When she settled in Lac-Mégantic almost three years ago, she understood the symbolic importance of the place. She couldn’t ignore the past. “We take the torch, with our colors, while keeping the essence of the start,” she explains.
From Hollywood to Lac-Mégantic
As for the choice of the artist to animate this unique evening, he imposed himself: Dany Flanders, a performer who has Lac-Mégantic tattooed on his heart. The Hollywood, Florida-based career man himself offered to take part in the commemorations.
The singer, originally from Stanstead, participated in the first season of The Voice in 2013. The same year, a few days after the derailment, he resumed the song Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen, in French and having adapted the lyrics to the circumstances, in a show at the Vieux Clocher, in Magog. It is with this song that he will launch the festivities at the Musi-Café ten years later.
Commemorating a tragedy is heavy in emotions, of course, but there was no question for Dany Flanders of letting sadness take all the place. ” [Il] you have to remember everyone, you can’t miss it, but life goes on and you have to have fun too, ”he said in an interview before the show. Afterwards, we see that it is mission accomplished. Three hours of performance later, the energy of the room is still at its peak.
Despite everything, during the evening, although Mélanie Campagna danced with aplomb, she reminds us that it is only a balm for still deep wounds. She knows several people who died in the tragic events of 2013. Getting out is good, she says, but “we will never recover”.
The activities to highlight the decade that is coming to an end will end this Saturday with a “comfort concert” at Veterans Park. In recent days, in Lac-Mégantic, people seemed torn between the importance of remembering and the desire to move forward. Friday evening, at the Musi-Café, we realized that partying does not mean forgetting.