It was with this final song in front of a moved and standing audience that Bernard Lavilliers’ concert in Orléans ended this Thursday evening. A great moment of music and poetry with a singer surrounded by exceptional musicians for an evening with resonances full of traveling imagination.
By Gerard Poitou
Bernard Lavilliers cl GP
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Alone on the guitar as if surrounded by musicians with overflowing creativity, the singer has not disappointed his audience forty-five years after his first appearance at the Orléans theater. Bernard Lavilliers, 75, held the Zenith stage in turmoil for two hours in a brilliant and colorful show. Even if the voice takes time to warm up, very quickly, the singer who boxes with the words embarks the public for a stopover in Buenos Aires on the occasion of the release of his 23rd album. “Under a huge sun” (released last November), produced as a remedy for the confinement of the eternal globe trotter:”I didn’t take any trips, it was the trips that made me!” he likes to recall in “Voyages”.
“When our loves will no longer be valid
Under this huge sun
Then will come the countdown
On these burnt desires
The trip to Buenos Aires
The shortened trip to Argentina of the most Brazilian of French singers (in 2019) earned us some beautiful titles from the always militant such as “The porteños are tired… to have it in the bone”or the inevitable “Black Tango” without forgetting the satire of the host of the Elysée and his“little marquises never elected, always chosen” (Beautiful Days)” . Between revolt and Latin music, the most beautiful according to Bernard Lavilliers, (“rock is four chords, rap one…“), the titles are linked between here and elsewhere, between yesterday and today. And of course the covers, hummed by an audience who also danced in front of the stage before Bernard Lavilliers descended into the stands with his musicians for an impromptu walkabout. And the spectators to sing along to the classics “On the road again”, “La Salsa” or “Black Ideas”.
“L’ailleurs”, the last title of the album written in intensive care after a heart attack reminds us that we almost lost this rebel of French song, so long life to Bernard Lavilliers!
Bernard Lavilliers cl GP
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