M performed the first of two shows at the Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier on Thursday night to open Francos. We attended her performance with rare generosity, and caught up with the French superstar a few hours before the performance. Report on a radiant evening of reunion, which took place under the sign of joy and love.
Posted yesterday at 11:56pm.
“It’s like a love story, finding someone you haven’t seen in nine years. It’s going to be beautiful tonight,” Matthieu Chedid told us in his dressing room after completing a fairly intense sound test during which he clarified a lot of details. Arrived the day before and still under the influence of jet lag, the white-hot artist likes this slightly feverish state. “It’s an interesting second state,” he says, smiling.
The last time we saw M in Montreal was in 2014 at the Place des Festivals, in front of a sea of people. The following year he had returned, surrounded by his family – his father, his brother, his sister – in a more intimate spectacle. The pandemic will then have forced this long involuntary hiatus for the singer, who has been performing in Quebec since the early 2000s.
“In the beginning I was almost more successful here than in France. We don’t forget these things. We are a little ecstatic here, from the energy of the people, from the love for the French language. It makes a lot of fun. And I find my great friends, Ariane Moffatt, Pierre Lapointe, Jim Corcoran, Marc Labrèche, Pascale Bussières. It will be an express journey that is more about intensity than duration. »
M is back in Montreal as part of his hugely successful Rêvalité tour: Thursday was his 123rd performance and he estimates that after 150 performances in London in September around a million people will have come to see the concert.
PHOTO CATHERINE LEFEBVRE, SPECIAL COLLABORATION
M, a.k.a. Matthieu Chedid
“It’s a real epic, this tour. » How can it be explained? “Every night I ask who’s coming for the first time, and it’s always half the room. My audience is getting younger and younger, there are kids, people in their 20s…”
In short, M has been a unifier for more than 25 years because he practices his profession “selflessly, with a love of poetry, art, creativity, family, with the heart,” he enumerates.
“It’s like the song my grandmother wrote me: ‘I say M and I sow it on my planet.’ They are seeds of love. It’s the right fertilizer, it grows well. »
The singer believes the secret to his consistency is staying out of fashion and “off the record,” while remaining “in relentless coherence” with himself.
In everything I do, I have a long-term perspective, I see 40 years before and 40 years after. I like the idea that everything is the same story. Although I have this thing, these color periods like Picasso. With guide.
M
The color of this tour is purple, a mixture of the blue of dreams and the red of reality. “We experienced that on this tour. »
He was preparing to change back into M’s clothes on Thursday after a short nap and full of excitement: his stage character has never weighed on him after all these years.
“My biggest achievement is having created M. That’s why I won’t let go. Not that I feel like a prisoner for him, but thanks to this mask I’m having even more fun. »
pure joy
M had promised us in an interview that he would get the spectators out of their seats in the cozy Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier. “It’s a story about energy, huh? “We admit that we had doubts, but we had to prove it from the first notes of the first song, Rêvalité, which raised the entire floor of the huge hall with almost 3000 seats in one block.
More than two hours later, by the end of the show, people were still standing between the rows and in the aisles, singing, skipping and dancing, not a dime tired – and even those who were sitting on the high ground had also stood up by the end.
PHOTO DOMINICK GRAVEL, THE PRESS
M on Thursday evening on stage
More than a singer, M is an entertainer who takes the audience into his fantastic and happy world without letting them go for a second. From the second song, the riff of “Qui de nous deux” captivated us. Immediately afterwards, “Onde Sensuelle” gave us the impression that the show had reached its climax.
But the atmosphere stayed the same the whole time, from La Seine to Mama Sam.
The singer often took the time to get people singing with the lights on, stretched out the guitar solos (still amazing, Machistador), showed us the lyrics of a new piece, complete with choreography (Mogodo). Even during the purely acoustic version of “En tête à tête” no one thought to sit down.
There was also generosity in the air. For his bassist Gail Ann Dorsey, Bowie’s collaborator for 20 years, who sang Life on Mars alone and with whom he performs a cover of Joe Dassin (À toi), for Ariane Moffatt, who sings her now-classic La bonne étoile with him, for the spectator who came to sing his version of Nombril, as he does at every show on this tour, to the audience whom he sends kisses of sheer joy and lots of love.
When he opened the encore with Mojo, the Wilfrid Pelletier Hall, which was often so cold, vibrated with happiness and pleasure. That’s exactly what he was looking for, and he maintained that to the end with “This Day” and “I Say Love,” as he wandered from one end of the room in the audience, from a third balcony to the other, and took his time left, before returning to the stage and graduating with radio.
His new song “Mogodo” speaks to the inner child in each one of us, and one thing is clear: not only does Matthieu Chedid not get very far when he goes on stage, but he also knows how to give each viewer the time to do so brings out a well-placed reef. Whether he wears his M headdress or not, under the glowing eye that overlooks the stage, the desire to be a part of him is so great that we have no choice but to hold on.
“You set the bar very high for the Francos, thank you, Matthieu,” Ariane Moffatt began when she left the stage, visibly touched, after her performance. We have to agree: A master of riff and rhyme, M delivered an opening show worthy of the name, colorful and genuinely touching in its generosity. The sower of love has succeeded again.