In Le tour du bloc, Michel Rivard celebrates 50 years of career with generosity and elegance, with about twenty songs that take him on a journey through his repertoire and through time. Surrounded by eight musicians and three singers, he offers a cozy show in which we gently cuddle up.
Posted yesterday at 10am
“If it’s your birthday and you get a surprise, you have no control over what’s going to happen. But when you’re the one who invites the people you love over, you make sure they have fun too,” the singer-songwriter explains the day after the second performance of his tour, which took place at L’Étoile in Brossard on Wednesday , which we attended.
Michel Rivard, who will be performing on the stage at Montreal’s Théâtre Maisonneuve this Friday and Saturday, is relieved to have finally given his first show in Longueuil last weekend.
This show has been my obsession for a year. Up until the premiere, I asked myself: Did we make the right decisions? In good condition ? Will the lyrics work?
Michael Rivard
After two appearances he knows it now. Communion takes place and he feels it fully. “It’s my party, but I look at the people and I feel like they’re happy too. It’s sure to be her party too, because these 50 years I haven’t made her alone! »
PHOTO DOMINICK GRAVEL, THE PRESS
Michel Rivard is surrounded by 11 musicians and singers.
PHOTO DOMINICK GRAVEL, THE PRESS
Pianist François Richard signs the new arrangements of the songs.
PHOTO DOMINICK GRAVEL, THE PRESS
Featuring his longtime accomplice and Flybin Band member, Rick Haworth
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His only algorithm for choosing the songs will therefore have been shared pleasure, with essentials that he has always sung, very old ones revived for the occasion and some lesser-known ones that fit the show’s themes. All in a lush coating of new arrangements created by pianist François Richard, played and interpreted by the original Flybin Band – Rick Haworth, Mario Légaré and Sylvain Clavette – a wind quartet “that makes you breathe and packs a punch”, as well as just three very dedicated choristers, in a bubbly mix of generations that creates “a happy sound”.
continuity
After the long almost solo tour of The Origin of My Species, Michel Rivard had a great desire for sharing, interaction and human warmth. Despite this, the music shows that bring 12 artists together on stage no longer run across the streets. We wonder if the singer knows inflation is rampant and the music industry is in trouble. “To use a phrase from home…when you’re throwing a party, don’t look at the cost! ” He laughs.
I have it, dude. I am 71 years old. I can’t pout on my comfort and pleasure. It’s a big boat for sure, but 50 years of song, that deserved it.
Michael Rivard
In this show, which has its share of emotions and in which the spoken sequences are poetic and far from the stupid didactic anecdote, we have the feeling that Michel Rivard’s eyes are not only on the past. The “nostalgia for contemplation” that makes people say “it used to be better,” very little for him. “I’m not signing that. But the nostalgia to assimilate one’s past, revisit it with a smile and see how it contributes to our present is not a problem. »
PHOTO DOMINICK GRAVEL, THE PRESS
As always, the singer’s interventions are very well written, funny, relevant and poetic.
Result: when he continues the short story Le tour du bloc and motel “Mon repos” written a month ago at the beginning of the program, his first composition from 1972, he remains “the same” despite the decades. of ‘difference.
“I feel the continuity. This allows him to go through his repertoire without following a chronology, on a journey “set in the ruts of time”, as he puts it. A nice long journey indeed, in two parts, which is becoming increasingly rare. “We tried to cut melodies to fit into one part, but every time we started crying. So I decided: there will be a break and we will make it over quickly anyway. »
We reassure him: From “I want to see the sea” to “Beware of the great love” to “The Return of Don Quixote” there is no boredom. And Michel Rivard still finds his joy in interpreting these long-loved songs, among other things by giving them a new patina.
I learned that from my teachers. In the same year I had seen James Taylor, Neil Young, Paul Simon and Leonard Cohen. Each time they made me happy by making the tunes I wanted to hear and they surprised me with new arrangements. It taught me a lesson.
Michael Rivard
It’s nonetheless moving to see him touched by the chorus of viewers softly intoning The Lament of the Seal in Alaska at the end of the first part… although it’s not really that surprising! “True, but that doesn’t mean I take it lightly. People who sing together move me. And it always strikes me to see that she was adopted like that. »
PHOTO DOMINICK GRAVEL, THE PRESS
Michel Rivard offers a non-linear journey through his repertoire.
If Michel Rivard created this new show, it was to bring joy and because he wanted it. “I wouldn’t do this tour if it was more important to me to say no, no, we’re going to do a show with new tunes. »
Luckily, because the tour that has just started will take quite a while: another one has been announced in June at Francos, venues will be added for autumn and probably even winter 2024. wherever she wants. And I ask for nothing better. »