Everyone together | (Almost) everyone celebrating

(Montreal) In these pandemic holidays when it is a little colder in many salons, the show Everyone together bundled up viewers in a 90-minute musical blanket on Monday. Report in five steps.

Michel Saba
The Canadian IT

Warm quilt

More or less competitors as usual, Pierre-Yves Lord, Marie-Lyne Joncas, Jean-Philippe Dion and Véronique Cloutier launched the festivities, broadcast on the four major Quebec networks live from the Yoop space, a performance hall virtual installed at Place des Arts. By way of introduction: the solidarity quartet delivered a sympathetic account of our “Covidian” lives punctuated by musical successes – d ‘Send home at Damn brothel Passing by Travel Travel – carried by the silky voices of Guylaine Tanguay, Mélissa Bédard and Ludovick Bourgeois. “We want to organize a real holiday party for you,” announced Jean-Philippe Dion, while a mosaic of viewers-Internet users nodding in front of their webcam appeared. A little later, all were involved for “the greatest karaoke in the world,” says actor Benoît McGinnis, who officiated the interactive segment alongside his colleague Debbie Lynch-White. Martine St-Clair and Boom Desjardins, among others, took the microphone to We are going to love each other and Just to see the world, of circumstance.

Surprises

At the end of karaoke, All the SOS cries, launched by the surprise guest Marie Denise Pelletier, have undoubtedly found an answer in many thatched cottages. Another unexpected moment: Patrick Norman, Sylvain Cossette, Bruno Pelletier, Jeff Smallwood and Roch Voisine, whom the pandemic brought together under the project The Silver Foxes, made their first TV appearance to sing I Won’t Back Down, by Tom Petty. Lisa LeBlanc, joined in Moncton, presented her disco alter ego Belinda and her love of bingo, “her favorite sport”. Rare absurd moment of the evening; the Appendices would have nodded. Mes Aïeux, a group reconstituted in 2019, not only created a funky medley of traditional hits, but also presented a new song with a strong hint of confinement. Coming soon to a radio station near you? Finally, Richard Séguin, whose presence had been silenced, concluded the evening by inviting Quebecers, “very close to the finish line”, to Staying up.

First the comfort

The organizers preferred covers that provide comfort to discoveries that confront. This was the goal of Quebec – which commissioned and sponsored the event produced by KOTV, box of Louis Morissette -, and it was achieved: to organize a federating party to “keep morale up”. A little “left field” or left chants, among these reassuring voices? So little. Among other things, it was necessary to turn to Les Trois Accords (effective Close your eyes, Simon) to leave the niche of consensual interpreters. The singer-songwriter Ariane Moffatt, for her part, had pre-recorded in a bistro the touching Hope in piano-voice formula, with three candles as the only lighting. Vincent Vallières and Émile Bilodeau, meanwhile, were filmed as they offered, posted on an allegorical-musical float, a traveling concert to the Magogois. Indigenous culture has been (too?) Briefly celebrated during the Tshinanu, song championed by Algonquin rapper Samian and Innu veteran Florent Vollant.

It’s not because we’re laughing …

In contrast with the health context, the evening, with its glitter and jovialist tone, was meant to be light, festive, sometimes playful. The humorist Phil Roy, for example, commented on the technological mastery of the families of the public gathered in front of their webcam. “What’s the first rule?” A beautiful framing ”, he ruled, proof and counter-proof in support. Better to laugh… The image finally returned the camera of Mathieu Dufour, alias Math Duff. The comedian, revealed thanks to his series Show-rona virus on Instagram, quickly swapped his webcam for the Yoop scene, where he laid a pandemic parody on the pangs of work to the sound of Watermelon Sugar, by Harry Styles.

Little for young people

Yes, the man-orchestra Damien Robitaille made the students of a primary school sing with It seems to me, created in June for the Journées de la culture. Yes, Math Duff’s passage certainly appealed to teenagers. Yes, Les Trois Accords unites young and old. The fact remains that the young people were the most forgotten of the vigil, almost exclusively a succession of tales that the under 20s cannot know. Impossible to invite a large part of Quebecers to the party without incorporating a good dose of rap or dancing pop in the punch bowl. In short, very little to blackmail and move the youth, yet also semi-confined and great victim of the crisis. Everyone together? Almost…