After the chaos of a Thursday evening under a weather alert, a mild Friday was welcome at the Festival d’été de Québec: the clear skies, the hot and humid weather perfectly suited the Latin pop fiesta proposed by the American rapper with Cuban roots Pitbull , whose popularity forced the organization of the festival to close access to the Plains of Abraham, filled to capacity as soon as Jamaican singjay Koffee, who was visiting the capital for the first time in her young career.
Revealed at the age of sixteen thanks to the clip, which went viral, of her composition in tribute to sprinter Usain Bolt (Legend), winner of a Grammy at the age of 20 for his first mini-album Rapture, Koffee had to quickly learning the trade, its flavor of reggae and dancehall, mixed with pop and trap, having instantly won over an international audience.
Accompanied on stage by an (almost) full orchestra, brass included, the young woman seemed much more assured than on her first stage on Quebec soil, at Osheaga in 2019. With a smile, presence, she gently put the table for Pitbull, not without a little difficulty, the public seeming unfamiliar with his repertoire. Let’s also recognize that Koffee does not have a carrying voice; the addition of choristers to his ensemble would have given the tone that he still lacks.
And that’s all he misses hearing him distribute his best songs like this, Rapture opening through The Harder They Fall (theme songs from the black western film of the same name, released in 2021), including succulents Raggamuffin (with its intro quoting the famous Real Rock Riddim), the one drop rhythm Pressure, Giftedhis melodious West Indies anthem, Lockdown (which was one of our lifelines during the lockdowns) and Toasthis first radio success, in Great Britain and the United States.
Thom in Quebec
As they left the plains to catch The Smile at Parc de la Francophonie, security guards warned arriving festival-goers that the site was already at capacity. It groaned behind the big stage, where a few thousand other spectators had chosen to stretch out on the lawn to hear Pitbull’s show without being there.
At the Parc de la Francophonie, the Torontonians of Alvvays (their latest album Blue Rev is one of the favorites to win the Polaris Music Prize) ended their concert loudly in front of a conquered crowd, but here also waiting for The Smile. The English trio brings together, in addition to jazz drummer Tom Skinner, none other than Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood from Radiohead; the famous experimental rock group has never given a concert in Quebec City. For several fans in the capital, the concert of this new project, which gave birth last year to the excellent album A Light for Attracting Attentionwas therefore unavoidable.
Yorke first appeared on the upright piano, sketching the smooth introduction of pana vision ; on electric bass, Jonny Greenwood stared at Skinner seated behind his drums. A saxophonist (who will appear and disappear from the stage, depending on the song) adds his color to the emerging groove. The first half of the concert will perfectly reflect the impression that we had retained from the album: complex rhythms, grooves turned towards African music (the ethiojazz touch of Colors Flyone of the three or four unreleased songs offered last night), bursts of German kosmishe rock-style psychedelia (A Hairdryerthe sublime groove!), sound explosions contained in a stripped-down trio formula where each member changes instruments from one song to another, with Skinner sometimes switching to the modular synthesizer.
But during the performance, the “radioheadian” folds appear in Yorke’s and Greenwood’s playing, particularly during We Don’t Know What Tomorrow Bringsa furious rock worthy of the great performances of the creators of Kid A. The more the evening progressed, the more The Smile moved away from the dense textural games and convoluted rhythms of the album towards a more conventional, but never agreed upon form of rock song. In great vocal form, Thom Yorke addressed the public a few times, and in French.
It’s far from such a safe bet that we started our evening at the FEQ. At 6 p.m., the free stage erected in front of the parliament welcomed the singer-songwriter Damien Rapides (anagram of Damien Deparis), Lille came accompanied by a musician, with sequences and multiple buttons to turn. Damien won the Prix Inouïs du Printemps de Bourges a few weeks ago, a real springboard for his budding career – we only know of him for one mini-album, Engine painreleased last year on the French label Bruit Blanc.
In front of a sparse crowd and under a beating sun, he tried to make his mark with songs half-sung, half-rapped, on simple electronic music sometimes inspired by new wave, sometimes by acid house. For references, we will remember TTC, even in the texts with strange images, bordering on surreal, but without the festive spirit. More gloomy, less instantly danceable – Damien Rapides would have been more comfortable if we had programmed him late at night in a dark club.