Félix Leclerc : TV Mini-Series, Radio-Canada, 2005

The 4-part mini-series Félix Leclerc*, was met with a complicated critical and public response and ignited passions all the way to a lawsuit upon its release in 2005, but over the years it has attained a surprising longevity of a fan cult classic due to the participation of enormously popular Daniel Lavoie**, who seems to be having the last laugh in this story.

J’écoute la radio : notes on Daniel Lavoie's concert tour (2012-2014)

©Spectra Musique

 

To see a big picture one needs to step away from it. In order to understand the role a concert tour played in a performer’s carrier one needs to wait a couple of years after the tour’s ended. So, what exactly was the J’écoute la radio tour? Now, 3.5 years later is the best time to answer the question.

Mes longs voyages (show) : Daniel Lavoie's live show, Canada, February 2017

If you go see Daniel Lavoie's new live show Mes longs voyages and are familiar with his eponymous and unabashedly dark album (released in 2016), you are in for a surprise. Because oh, what a magician that Daniel Lavoie is! Hop-la and all the blood, sweat and tears of the album turn into champagne! Effervescent and luminous, Daniel Lavoie sings, dances, switches (or ditches) instruments, talks, laughs, grimaces, savors his time in the limelight, as if trying to put behind him all the troubles that followed him in 2016 (and inspired the album) as fast as he can, and he effortlessly pulls the audience into his happy vortex. And as for that guy on the promo photos - the one who carries the weight of the world on his shoulders – one wonders what he has to do with this show…

Mes longs voyages (album) / Daniel Lavoie (2016, Spectra Musique)

By now I have listened to Daniel Lavoie’s new album Mes longs voyages (MLV) many times, and have found that it not only offers the listener some truly beautiful music, but is at the same time a poetic and philosophical statement of striking sincerity and poignancy. Clearly designed as an attempt to draw up a "balance sheet" of life's journey, it exposes the idea of finality and acceptance while at the same time offering a true declaration of love for fragile human beings and for life itself.

Prélude aux 12 hommes (Théâtre de Quat’Sous, Montreal, November 9, 2015) : Gilles Bélanger and special guest Daniel Lavoie

In tiny and totally charming Montreal's Théâtre de Quat’Sous (a perfect venue for an intimate show) Gilles Bélanger, the composer behind the legendary "Douze hommes rapaillés" project, invites one of the 12 "hommes" (participants of that project) every evening over the course of two weeks this November for a conversation about the "Douze hommes", music, songwriting and personal paths in the music business. I saw the show on November 9 when Daniel Lavoie visited the stage.

Particulités / Daniel Lavoie (Les Éditions des Plaines, 2015)

Je ne lis pas les poètes, j’écoute le ciel

(Daniel Lavoie, Particulités)

As bizarre as it might seem to review a book of French language poetry in English, I will do exactly that, although it is very difficult to find an English equivalent even for the book's main tonality, la tristesse. Not quite sadness, but rather a dark tint, a beautiful melancholy. Forget everything you know about Daniel Lavoie the entertainer, with his trademark sunny smile. The narrator of Particulités is disillusioned and detached as he dissects the Universe’s mechanics, awe-inspiring and mysterious, the work of a great higher consciousness. When the narrator then descends back to Earth he observes it almost as a stranger, who despite all the vain and cruel ways of humanity, through the mundane details of everyday life senses a higher light seeking transcendence through people, nature and art (“Je sais qu’un dieu séculier cherche, à travers moi, les mots pour me dire qu’il est là” - bulletin). 

Finutilité / Daniel Lavoie (Les Éditions des Plaines, 2011)

The easy charm of finutilité

If you have never heard Daniel Lavoie read in concert some of his poems/poetic essays before they became  Finutilité - you are in for a wonderful ride. And if you are the lucky one who has  - then you have probably already bought the book!

Finutilité easily charms the reader with the author's poetic vision, his ability to see and to connect images in a truly original way, his honesty and his unique poetic intonation.

Comédies Humaines / Daniel Lavoie (2007, GSI Canada)

Comédies Humaines is one of my favorite albums by Daniel Lavoie. No-no, one doesn't need to understand French in order to appreciate it. The music is enough, with its sensual and at the same time intellectual allure. However, as always the case with this author/singer, words matter, and they matter a lot.