DANIEL LAVOIE AT PULLY.

9TH AND 10TH JUNE 2004.

by Jean Johnsen

Several of Daniel's fans had made the journey to be at the festival "Pully à l'heure du Québec in Pully nearly Lausanne in Switzerland. Most of the audience was from the Lausanne/Pully-Lavaux area. Big names from Québec were performing, among them Robert Charlebois, Natasha St. Pier and Roch Voisine. Each evening Daniel shared the bill with a young group. The first evening there was Pierre Lapointe with his rather smug, vulgar and ego-centric patter songs. The audience quickly warmed to him and his group. The second evening there was Amélie Vielle, an Avril Lavigne type performer with her backing group, who also went down well with the audience. We were there, of course, for Daniel.

After the interval, we saw that the big Steinway, which I had hoped Daniel would play, had been removed. There was a chair surrounded by an electric guitar, a classical guitar, a mandolin, an accordion, a violin plus a microphone. To its side, a keyboard with microphone and, at the front of the stage, a tall microphone. The stage was bare of décor, being black with a few up-lighters at the back. This darkness was to make photographing Daniel's performance almost impossible. The compere introduced Daniel to the audience and Daniel and his accompanionist Francis emerged from the gloom to take up their positions at their instruments. Daniel was in a black suit with a fitted white shirt and he was lightly tanned after a few days in the sunshine. He began by playing a new Lavoie/Guirao song "La fille á St, Supplice", the words of which are already on the site, and which will be on his next album. Don't hold your breath fans, this album is far into the future at the moment. Daniel explained about his keyboard, or table as he called it, which could more easily be packed up and transported than a grand piano.

Then he plunged into songs from "Comedies Humaines", La Poésie by Leo Ferré and some of his older songs, "Ils s'aiment", "Je voudrais voir New York", "Qui Sait" which he embellished by singing several times "Qui sait, kiss me, kiss you". (Yes please, sighed the ladies in the audience) and "Boule qui roule" in which he invited the audience to join in the refrain. The only omissions from the album were "Leila" and "Les Lilas". For me that was a great pity since they are my number two and three favourites, "Violoncelle" being my absolute favourite.

A particular high spot was Daniel singing "Belle" a capella, after testing the accoustics for suitable cathedral type resonance. It was interesting to hear both the "Comedies Humaines" songs and the older songs sung differently from the technical purity of the recordings: a slight change in emphasis, of tempo, of phrasing, made everything more alive, more personal, more intimate. We felt involved.

Daniel's voice has expanded over the years. There was still the light romantic voice with its unique catch. Indeed, he even sang falsetto at one stage, but we also recognised his Frollo voice and something deeper, more profound, heading towards bass. His timing is immaculate, he appears comfortable with himself now. Of course, there were a few signs of first night nerves, he flapped a bit when on his feet, hesitated and fluffed a few words and was not able to get his sheets of texts back into order when they slid off the keyboard at the beginning of the second evening but, behind his keyboard, he was perfection. Daniel also provided a subconscious percussion by tapping his feet audibly. Was this nerves too? I think not, just a complete musician enjoying himself completely.

Daniel came forward to the microphone two or three times. The first time he said it felt strange to be performing again after such a long break. He had had to check that everything was in order, everything fastened. At this, he flung open his jacket and patted his buttons, belt and zip and looked downwards once more – just in case! We all laughed with him.

He introduced the fantastic Francis to us who took a little bow. Another time he spoke about making the Félix Leclerc TV series and recording some Félix songs. The third time, he spoke about fans who wrote to him about a certain verse, a certain song, then he sang "Belle" for them. The first night he was recalled for two encores, the second night, which was a shorter performance with a couple more "Comedies Humaines" songs missing as well as the new one with Patrice Guirao, he went out with "Qui sait, kiss me, kiss you" to total darkness and did not return, in spite of our vigorous clapping. The hall was packed to capacity and the citizens of Lausanne/Pully-Lavaux, who had fallen under Daniel's magic spell, wanted more, as we the fans did too.

Alas, that was the end of Daniel and Francis. However, Daniel was generous with his time afterwards and, in spite of being jet-lagged and in need of sleep, he arrived both nights to chat with fans old and new, to sign his album and to suffer his photo to be taken hundreds of times, still smiling, still looking good. Eventually, we all left and said bye bye until the Auditorium in Paris. Thanks for Pully and Good Luck for Québec, Paris and elsewhere Daniel!

PICTURES: Pully,  9 et 10 juny   

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