I saw Grand Eugène, the indie dream pop collaboration between Melyssa Lemieux and Jeremy Lachance, two years ago at FME, and that show was much more intimate and low-key. But their opening set of the Francos Loto-Scene Quebec stage is proof that this project is now main stage ready.
On a balmy Saturday evening, Grand Eugène took us through songs on the latest album Deux places au cimitière, surrounded by a crowd full of children, old Québécois rockers, punks, and passerbys. The jazzy indie mix was super tight, as well as the guitar licks by Lachance and piano flourishes by the keyboardist (whose name I can’t find anywhere). Lemieux has a soft and whisper-thin voice,(her vocals could maybe have been a bit louder) perfect for the waves of dream pop, somewhere between Mazzy Star’s Hope Sandoval and Men I Trust’s Emmanuelle Proulx, but all in French, of course. It was the best way to start this year’s Francos festival.
