Luce Dufault, her Scotch evenings and her Marseillais

Luce Dufault performing on the Loto-Québec stage at the Francos de Montréal, Tuesday, June 14, 2022

Can you believe it? We have known it since the early 1990s, and Luce Dufault had never owned an outdoor Francos stage on her own. She's the one saying it. Moreover, it had been an eternity since she had not enjoyed this festival before Tuesday, when she and her musicians settled on the Loto-Québec stage for an hour and a half of pretty communion to the tunes of past and present. .

She arrived with a broad smile on her lips, opening her arms wide as she noticed that several spectators in the front row were already cheering her on.

In her short black dress with a flared skirt, Luce stretched the proposal to her floor, standing and sitting in the grass, as one haggles over the bite of chocolate after the plate of broccoli: she was going to play some of the 14 tracks from her most recent album, Dire quand je t'aime (launched in March 2020), which she is currently taking on tour, then she was going to go back in time, up to thirty years behind, by shelling out some comforting songs.

“You should recognize one or two”, she let dangle as a promise of dessert. OK, we won, our mouths were watering.

Luce Dufault performing on the Loto-Québec stage at the Francos de Montréal , Tuesday, June 14, 2022
Credit: Victor Diaz Lamich/Courtesy Spectra

Pretty new

And the pact was fulfilled. Of course we couldn't wait to get drunk on his Evenings of Scotch and other chart-topping tunes. But we understand the lady for not wanting to sacrifice the material of To say how much I love youin favor of its old radio nuggets, even if the context of outdoor meetings in festival time predisposes more to known refrains; his latest batch is full of brilliant lyrics that might have become Felix Song of the Year hits in a pre-Spotify era and the breakup of platforms.

Like those pretty words from the author and poet David Goudreault on Débrise-nous, arranged, please, by their friend of both Richard Séguin, or Love and Carbon , which kicked off the evening on Tuesday, or this title offering initialed by Luc De Larochellière and Andrea Lindsay, Say how much I love you, or this first music composed by herself, Luce Dufault, on the moving La chanson de Cohen… In short, listen carefully, the opus contains a lot of beauty and goodness.

Luce Dufault performing on the Loto-Québec stage at the Francos de Montréal, Tuesday, June 14, 2022
Credit: Victor Diaz Lamich/Courtoisie Spectra < h3>Love and pizza

If some people were unaware of how endearing Luce Dufault can be, the introduction to her second piece, Marseille, was no doubt quick to soften them. This sober declamation of love pays tribute to Jean-Marie Zucchini, her spouse of 32 years and father of her two children, including Lunou, made famous at Star Académie 2021.

We were treated to the whole story: the lovers' first meeting took place at the defunct Les Beaux Esprits bar, in Saint-Denis, where this “new employee from elsewhere, super exotic”, did just about everything, even build the pizza oven. The singer cracked when she realized that her new friend was concocting pizzas for her that weren't on the menu. “I resisted, because that's what you have to do. I resisted… two seconds”, joked Luce in front of an audience hanging on his lips, eager for the rest. However, in a moment of lucidity, the then young Luce realized that she had already been in a relationship for five years. “Me, the pizza, it plays tricks on me…” Thank God, the brave P-A in question, whom the singer warmly greeted on Tuesday, forgave him the infidelity.

Luce Dufault performing on the Loto-Québec stage at the Francos de Montréal, Tuesday, June 14, 2022
Credit: Victor Diaz Lamich/Courtoisie Spectra

Touching Mon Dieu

It was almost sharp at 8:40 p.m. that the first stanzas of the Evenings of Scotch which enchant him rose at the corner of De Maisonneuve and Clark. The audience quickly, but timidly, intoned the name of the drink with their queen of the moment.

Jump to the same time, and even a little further, What's left of us – how long has it been since we've heard that one! – generated a respectful, prolonged silence on Mon Dieu, by Édith Piaf, whom Luce has been dragging with her since a tribute show to the 50th anniversary of the legend's departure, on the Plains of Abraham, in Quebec City, in 2013. A choir of 450 voices performed was then joined with her to upset the Old Capital, but on Tuesday, there was only the voice of blues of one of our kids which scratched nicely in the red and yellow beams of light, in the rustling of the mini string orchestra behind her.

A Beautiful columbinelater (another offering from his inseparable Richard Séguin), we clapped our hands in unison on Tu m'fais du bien.

“You're so stupid, you 'are so ridiculous' and the failings of this beautiful life on earth, does that remind you of 2004?

Luce Dufault also gave us Billions of things… before undergoing a short memory lapse during The world is stone. Yes, yes, this World is stone from the rock opera Starmania, the very production that brought Luce Dufault to the world some three decades ago. If we're not mistaken, it was a fire truck blaring with sirens not far from Complexe Desjardins that fleetingly distracted the artist.

You'll forgive me for my beautiful white, in Stone, huh? I've sung it a thousand times in my life, and it happened right in front of you! It was a special for the Francos!

Luce Dufault

I promise, Luce, we'll never say a word to Luc Plamondon.

Luce Dufault and his musicians performing on the Loto stage -Québec des Francos de Montréal, Tuesday, June 14, 2022
Credit: Victor Diaz Lamich/Courtoisie Spectra

Powerful flights

The darkness fell gently when Luce Dufault finished When men will live on love, of which she had dropped verses here and there between two pieces of her singing tour. And she wanted to offer, seated, Poor earthling, a “song knitted by lovers, for lovers”, co-created by the couple Catherine Major-Jeff Moran, to gently close this peaceful loop .

It was another big Francos night at the Quartier des Spectacles on Tuesday. On the boards of the Silo Brasseur in Montreal, Alex Burger detonated his urban country-folk at suppertime, while Lara Fabian rocked Wilfrid-Pelletier, inside Place des Arts, a clock tower later, and that Hubert Lenoir was preparing to brew the Place des Festivals at 9 p.m. Although we would have thought we were alone in the world with a Luce Dufault perhaps capable of burying a whole part of Montreal, when this one was outraged, strong as in its young years, on the flights the most powerful in his repertoire.

Luce Dufault performing on the Loto-Québec stage at the Francos de Montréal, Tuesday, June 14, 2022
Credit: Victor Diaz Lamich/Courtoisie Spectra

To be done again, on a multitude of other greatly deserved outdoor Francos stages.

The 33rd Francos de Montréal continues until June 18.