Inflation, the housing crisis, climate change… Times are tough, but someone managed to make us forget all that last Monday. Someone who reminded us how unifying and meaningful art can be.
For a few hours, time suspended its flight above the Plains of Abraham. Under a stormless sky, a crowd of 90,000 people gathered, tightly knit, to watch the show of his favorite group, the Cowboys Fringants, who had to cancel their performance a few days earlier because of the threat of storms.
Exceptionally, the Festival d’été de Québec has decided to postpone the meeting, stretching the event by one day.
One of the best decisions of the organization.
A few hours before the start of the show, we already felt that the moment would have something solemn.
PHOTO JACQUES BOISSINOT, CANADIAN PRESS ARCHIVES
The Cowboys Fringants delivered a memorable performance, all in connection with the 90,000 festival-goers who came to hear them and sing with them.
The people on site, interviewed by the numerous media covering the evening, repeated it at various microphones: we are here for the Cowboys, we are here for Karl.
Karl is of course Karl Tremblay, the singer of the group.
It is common knowledge that he is suffering from cancer and that he is currently undergoing treatments that undermine his strength and force the group to cancel several shows.
One can only imagine what he must have felt, what they all must have felt, in front of this compact crowd which sang their great successes with the fervor of great evenings that we will never forget.
It’s a special relationship between an artist and his audience. The artist creates a work from his experiences and his experience. Then he launches it into the universe, where other humans receive it with their own experiences and experiences.
Then it’s a bit of alchemy. The artist finds his audience, or not.
The Cowboys Fringants found their own and kept it over the years. Their songs have infiltrated the interstices of the daily life of Quebecers (and of the French people among whom they are immensely successful) to compose the soundtrack of many lives: births, deaths, marriages, separations, trips, graduations… For many, the songs of the Cowboys have become landmarks, markers of time. The longevity of the group – a quarter of a century – bears witness to this.
Last Monday, in Quebec, we had the impression that the fans wanted to give back to “their” group, that they had a debt to repay.
We felt the will of the festival-goers to communicate an immense dose of love and energy to Karl Tremblay and his gang as they go through such a difficult ordeal.
When the crowd accompanied the singer – who had to sit down during the song on my shoulder –, singing with him “Together we fear nothing…”, as a rallying cry, there couldn’t be many dry eyes on the Plains.
Excerpts from the show have been doing the rounds on social media for a week. A great emotional moment, even when viewed on a tiny phone screen.
There was something heroic about this tall man, visibly weakened, with drawn features, who had decided to give everything that evening, with a generosity that will be remembered for a long time.
We often say that we are looking for inspiring male role models in Quebec. There was one on the Plains that night.
A man who was not afraid to show himself vulnerable, giving us all a great lesson in courage and love.
Thank you Karl Tremblay. Thank you Fringant Cowboys.
And good luck for the future.