There was no question for Thierry Larose, Ariane Roy and Lou-Adriane Cassidy of experiencing this tour other than as an extended clan.
“It’s really important that everyone sings the words ‘Together in the face of the impossible’,” says Alexandre Martel to his nine comrades. The 10 musicians have just rehearsed during their sound test the theme song of the show Le Roy, la Rose et le Lou[p] and the request from the guitarist and director, although purely technical, also has metaphorical value.
It was all together in the face of the impossible that Thierry Larose, Ariane Roy and Lou-Adriane Cassidy, as well as all their respective musicians, wanted to experience the most important moment of their burgeoning careers. A happy, but not convenient, consequence: there is a lot, a lot, a lot of equipment on stage.
Created at the Francos in 2022, the three-headed show hit the road on November 2 for around ten dates, after three days in the rehearsal room and months of work, anguish and exaltation. Months during which the hair on Ariadne’s arms will have been their Ariadne’s thread.
“She has what we call the frissometer,” explains Thierry Larose in their dressing room, wearing a splendid t-shirt found in a donation box on the sidewalk. Hanging on his jacket: a “May God bless this generation” button offered by Gilles Valiquette, who himself sang this phrase in 1972 and who came to perform La Vie en Rose with them in 2022.
“In our preliminary meetings, we immediately talked about putting on a show in the style of the great happenings of the 1970s to glorify the country,” recalls musical director Alexandre Martel. It is to Thierry’s lover and responsible for the entire visual aspect of his career, Marianne Boucher, that we owe the idea of the nod to I saw the wolf, the fox, the lion , the 1974 event bringing together Robert Charlebois, Félix Leclerc and Gilles Vigneault.
But its contemporary response differs from these cult shows in that two of its headliners are women – which is not a detail – as well as in its moving desire to blur the line between the work as much as possible of both. There was no question of sacrificing some of the musicians who accompany them solo on the altar of budgetary reasons, even if the times are more for tours in reduced formation.
“Collective shows are vintage,” summarizes Thierry, who is not completely wrong, even if the joy of seeing and hearing so many people serving the noblest of common causes, that of music, is has no age.
In the afternoon, during the sound test, the hands of Ariane Roy’s chillometer, and all her colleagues, did not oscillate very much. Three bass drums, loads of amps, 10 musicians: the Club Soda stage had rarely been so crowded. And the sound engineer Tristan McKenzie repeated to everyone that they should not forget to have fun, the numerous technical problems caused by such a traffic jam undermined the morale of the already apprehensive troops, with the exception of Thierry , the most equanimous of relaxed guys.
It is that after the triumph of 2022 (“In the annals of the Francos”, had titled colleague Émilie Côté), there was in the air the awareness of being at the gates of a potentially historic evening, but also the desire not to let ourselves be invaded by this paralyzing idea. Especially since after three days of rehearsals and two shows in LaSalle and Gatineau, they were all “on backup battery”, as pianist Vincent Gagnon illustrated, under the approving gaze of bassist Sam Beaulé and the backing vocalist/ keyboardist Odile Marmet-Rochefort.
In the dressing rooms, Lou-Adriane was bustling about with a feverishness akin to an anxiety attack and flitting from the makeup room to a small shoot in which she was to take part on behalf of the gin distillery which is sponsoring the tour. Only the arms of her lover, Alexandre Martel, seemed to be able to soothe her.
“At one time, I thought I wouldn’t make it, but now it’s better,” she said a few minutes before 8 p.m., while Thierry and his drummer friend, CAO, were ecstatic, screaming Paul’s Monkberry Moon Delight McCartney.
“Is it almost the bowl? », asks Lou-Adriane. “What’s the bowl? », replies Dominique Plante, guitarist and privileged collaborator of Ariane. The bowl is the Tibetan bowl of the other drummer, PE Beaudoin. Minutes before being called into the spotlight, the 10 cast members crowd into a small, dark room and meditate to the sound of the note resounding from the sacred object.
Then the laughter takes over the silence and the whole gang shouts in unison: “We don’t care, we live for the music”, a key phrase from the theme song of the show Le Roy, la Rose et le Lou[ p], in which they also promise to never forget where they come from.
The recent statistics on online listening to Quebec music are obviously on their minds. “It definitely motivates us,” confirms Thierry. “The heritage of Quebec music is so rich and it seems like there is a disdain among a lot of young people for QC culture at the moment, which seems unjustified to me. »
“It pains me to remember that in high school, I was embarrassed to say that I listened to Quebec music,” adds Ariane.
But there is a source of hope in the fervor of their audience.
