In honor of Renée Martel, who died in December, two musicians from the Gaspé region, Paul Daraîche and Laurence Jalbert, presented a light show to a pre-selected audience at the Festival en chanson de Petite -Valley on Friday.
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From the first song “I’m going to the other side of the world” we expected an evening in a much more solemn tone, with Laurence Jalbert not on stage for the entire duration of the song.
But from “If we could start again” the evening took on a much happier tone. About a hundred seats at the back of the Chapiteau Quebecor were removed to make way for a dance floor, and several spectators, sometimes drunk from the alcohol, got carried away by the rhythm, especially during “J’ai un love that does not”. want to die”.
“Renée was my cosmic twin. We were born on the same day at the same time. That means our parents played ass at the same time!” giggled Paul Daraîche.
“But most of all, Renée is someone who stayed calm in all situations, no matter what happened,” he added.
Julie Daraîche, Paul’s sister who died on April 26, 2022, was also commemorated that evening. To commemorate her, the two friends, one from Saint-François-de-Pabos and the other from Rivière-au-Renard, offered him a delicate interpretation of “Que la lune est belle ce soir”.
Émilie Daraîche, Paul’s daughter, offered a touching medley of songs by Renée’s father, Marcel Martel. “We talked to each other about growing up touring, so I want to give him this tribute,” she said.
The particularly noisy dance floor didn’t seem to bother the musicians too much, except when Laurence wanted to get the people who were talking loudly at the bar to sing along to the great “Perce les Clouds”, composed by Paul Daraîche.
For someone “who doesn’t know his own lyrics,” Laurence Jalbert didn’t do badly either with “Le Lumberjack,” a song that made many laugh. The dance evening continued with “Le bateau du bonheur”, a song by Renée Martel that Paul Daraîche had always appreciated.
The daughter of the clan in the first part
It was Émilie Daraîche who opened the evening “in honor of our beautiful Renée”, as she presented it between two songs. The young woman presented two songs from her repertoire, including her first radio hit “Remember”. While she draws much inspiration from lyrical pop, country influence never seems too far away.