If Alicia Deschênes is alive today and preparing to release a third album since the beginning of her career as a singer-songwriter, it is thanks to Green Day and above all to her idol Billie Joe Armstrong.
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“I really went through hell in high school,” says the 27-year-old Quebec artist.
“I was often bullied. At a certain point I wanted it all to stop. It is in Green Day’s songs, writing and composition that I have found solace and managed to hold on to life,” Alicia Deschênes continues.
Apparently she’ll be on the Plains of Abraham Sunday night, her heart filled with hopes of spending some time on stage, no less, with Billie Joe Armstrong.
“My dream… let me play with you,” she wrote on a poster that she will be holding up for the singer to see.
“I dream of being able to thank him one day,” she says.
Photo courtesy of Alicia Deschênes
Heartbreak on the Agora
Alicia Deschênes discovered Green Day at the age of eight when her father bought the American Idiot album. “My first musical crush,” she says.
Since then she has been trying by all means to play with him on stage or just to talk to him. She almost made it to the Agora de Québec at a concert by the punk rock group in 2010.
“It’s the most heartbreaking thing,” says the musician.
She had initially won a fan club competition. The Prize: Special tickets handed to Billie Joe in person, but not in person as she had hoped.
First disappointment.
Then, during the concert, a fan was invited to join them on stage to sing the song Longview.
“I had a big poster to sing. I sat in the second row, I got up, everyone started screaming. Billie Joe saw me and told me to come over. Finally, I don’t know if it was because of my age or because I was in the stands, but the guards wouldn’t let me through. I couldnt go. They took someone else with them.
A sneaky photo
She still has a photo with her Billie Joe, a moment stolen almost on the spot, exiting a show at the Electric Foufounes of Montreal.
The singer was attacked with a guitar by an overly brazen admirer and rushed to his vehicle surrounded by his security guards when Alicia Deschênes shouted, “Please Billie Joe, I’ve been waiting for this moment for 14 years!”
“He said to me, ’14? Come here.’ We took a picture and he left. It’s a memory I cherish.