On this Tuesday afternoon, very hot but cloudy, the public space of the Nuits d’Afrique Festival was still in the making. The African village was finishing filling its displays, a Brazilian woman was giving dance lessons to a very small, but very attentive, audience.
On the Esplanade Tranquille, around a hundred people were seated, in the ambient humidity. It’s not easy to be the first group to launch the free music programming of the Festival Nuits d’Afrique.
This thankless task was that of Afrovibes, the voodoo-afrobeat ensemble from Montreal, led by percussionist Emmanuel Delly. Eight musicians, one singer, in front of a largely deserted audience, at the start. Ungrateful, I told you.
But it started to groove very quickly; the group is tightly woven. A trio of percussionists, facing a battery of three guitars, a keyboardist and a flawless bassist. And the singer who wraps it all up in a sensitive way. Everything was pretty tight.
I didn’t expect anything from this group. It was a cover assignment, in other words PANM360 asked me to go. I was pleasantly surprised. Not that Afrovibes is reinventing music, but he delivers a solid and super danceable performance. The three guitarists, one black, one white and one white, are hyper complementary between the solos and the riffs. The mix between Haitian and African influences is richly integrated, with a touch of America.
I enjoyed listening.
Little by little, people came to dance. An audience of all ages and colors, fascinating for a journalist to observe.
Afrovibes would have deserved a better niche. But someone has to start the festivities. The group will tour a lot in Quebec this summer. To monitor.
In closing, I ask a quick question: why is this type of group, from Quebec, so rarely present in the variety shows on our TV?
