Sardou: Between Charisma and Nostalgia

After a decade’s absence, the last of the sacred monsters of French variety triumphed last Friday at Montreal’s Bell Centre. Nostalgia when you hold us…

Accompanied by his 20-year-old daughter, who had only heard Louane’s beautiful cover of “Je vole,” popularized by the film La famille bélier, and “Comme d’habitude” (a Claude François and Elvis version), the author of these lines was not going to miss this artist, who remains probably one of the four or five most beautiful voices in the French-speaking world, along with Claude Dubois.

The recital opens with an animated panorama of a magnificent white horse galloping across the Irish plains. From the first notes of the lively “Les Lacs du Connemara,” it’s clear that we’re in Ireland. A successful, albeit short, version of this must-have song from the Sardoussian repertoire. This summer, the song became the subject of controversy when Juliette Armanet declared in an interview for a Belgian radio station that the song would drive her away from a party… A huge controversy to which the 76-year-old singer refused to respond, before apologizing privately by e-mail.

It’s true that breaking Sardou’s back was for a long time an obligatory part of left-wing politics, but we thought those days were over. In fact, the old crooner covered a mixture of his greatest hits, including the irresistible “En chantant…” ” Et c’est tellement plus mignon, de se faire traiter de con, en chansons…” to the delight of the largely white-headed crowd, who were quick to sing along in unison.

Rumour has it that Sardou, with “En chantant,” was responding to the young Renaud who had made fun of him by parodying another song: “Les Ricains.” An excellent cover of the latter song (here in Cajun style with banjo), drawn from the more committed era when Sardou had the audacity, or the courage, to remind the French who were demonstrating, quite rightly, against the Vietnam War, that without the Amerloques, they’d all be in Germania “saluting you know who…”. A powerful punchline that, from memory, doesn’t appear quite like that in the recorded versions.

While the re-orchestrations are generally successful, some pieces don’t stand up to the test of time as well, like this spoken version of “Je vole” or “Une fille aux yeux clairs,” a eulogy of a mother by her son that unsettled my young companion, causing her to declare: “But that’s downright incest, I’m disgusted. Fortunately, Sardou regains his grace with his next piece, “Le Privilège,” which is empathetic towards a young man who reveals his homosexuality.

Sprinkled with a few songs that may or may not be familiar to Quebec audiences, Sardou made some undeniable winks at us, notably by always talking about Quebec, and not Canada, as the French often do when referring to their cousins in America…

Flashbacks

Strangely enough, while the gruffest of singers graced us with “La rivière de notre enfance,” without Garou who was… in France, he didn’t perform “Je me souviens d’un adieu,” another very catchy track, which is nevertheless the name of the tour.

Among the highlights were “Vladimir Ilitch,” a song about the sirens of communism in which a screen overhanging the stage shows a huge statue of Lenin in slow decomposition, an all-too-short extract from the exutory “Le France,” and a rereading of “Verdun” and its wartime slide show, which resonated particularly strongly in view of current events in Ukraine and the Middle East. A reprise of “Quelque chose de Tennessee,” as if to make amends with Johnny, with whom he had no time to reconcile. But the apotheosis was reached when Sardou, convincing, threw down his hymn “Je vais t’aimer,” whose powerful images were highlighted by jolting brass.

Lighter moments with the cartoonish “Être une femme,” and also by revealing that he discovered one day in a record shop that the great Louis Armstrong had covered a song by his father, Fernand Sardou, actor and jazz singer, “Aujourd’hui peut-être,” which he performed for us with obvious pride.

In short, it was a very pleasant evening of nostalgia and charisma, despite a few cheesy moments, including some 1980s-style backing vocals. And, above all, we’ll remember that he was no slouch in bringing a team of over 20 people, just for the stage, including a fine brass section and no less impressive a choir. As for the verdict of the Lady Gaga and Sia fan who accompanied me: ” Decent. Very decent.”