After the third and last evening of semi-finals held at the Lion d’Or, the jury has decided: Héron and her contemporary trad-folk song, singer-songwriter Jeanne Côté and MC Parazar will continue on their way. to Club Soda, venue for the final of the competition on May 15th. The alignment of the top 3 participants held a major surprise, and left at the bottom of the podium several talents who will make their place on our musical scene.
On closer inspection, the composition of the top 3 is not so different from the top of the list of nine participants who reached the semi-final stage. The Gaspé native Jeanne Côté, again impeccable on stage last Tuesday evening, again seizes the second position, and the rapper Parazar of the third, she who we saw last Wednesday take possession of the stage of the Lion d’Or with a rare authority that will certainly serve him at Club Soda. It has sometimes been said that hip-hop artists accompanied only by a DJ (and a guest singer, as far as she is concerned) were disadvantaged next to full orchestras; Parazar has such a personality, and such a captivating repertoire, that she needs nothing more than a microphone and a soundtrack to set the mood.
The surprise was both to see Héron climb to the top of the list – he had finished in 4e position at the end of the preliminaries – and to measure the fall of the Nova Scotian punks Peanut Butter Sunday, chased out of the top 3 after finishing in first place in the previous round. Let’s admit that their performance last Monday no longer had the energy of the one they offered in the preliminaries – the voice of singer and guitarist Michael Saulnier was probably damaged, broken in the higher notes of the quartet’s catchy choruses.
Peanut Butter Sunday will have no trouble turning the page on the Francouvertes. Not only has he been able to present his jovial punk-pop to a new audience, but this group is already in the saddle on the music scene – they recently accompanied P’tit Belliveau on tour, and are busy filling their calendar shows for the coming summer, with a stopover at the Festival de la chanson de Tadoussac on June 16. Héron, on the contrary, offered a more assured performance than the first, even if with Henri Kinkead too, the voice played tricks, especially at the start of the concert last Tuesday.
Likewise, we haven’t finished hearing about the two other bands on the rock line-up last Monday. Marie Céleste first and her reinterpretation of the classic Quebecois folk-prog-rock of the 1970s, lyrical and psychedelic, then Cure-Pipe, which opted for an alignment of songs that were softer, less disheveled, than in the preliminaries, with its tangy and unpredictable rock song. Two groups from Saguenay, ready to conquer the rest of the province.
Seen at the end of the evening on Tuesday, Emmanuelle Querry had the misfortune to succeed on stage to Jeanne Côté, who has greater experience in the profession. On the other hand, the proposal of Querry, this very trendy alloy of pop song, R&B and synthetic orchestrations, distinguished it from the other competitors. The project is still green, but it is promising.
It’s the cruel side of competitions, there is only one winner to be found in this talent pool. Two of our favourites, Jeanne Laforest and BRUE, did not reach the final. The first with her jazzy song, executed with refinement, the second with her biting garage rock, to be taken literally, the musician (Sarah M-Brunnemer) posing with her project (and a good dose of humour) a critical look at the image of women in rock.
With Parazar, BRUE did the best job of entertaining the audience during and between songs, her costume and wig putting her in the shoes of a sympathetic character with no tongue in her pocket.