Lynda Lemay on tour

Refreshingly frank and funny

14/12/2000 - 

Quebec, December 12th 2000 - Before she returns to play to French fans at the end of January 2001, Lynda Lemay has been busy on the live circuit back home in Quebec. On tour until December 16th, Ms. Lemay brought the house down when she performed at the 'Grand Theatre de Quebec' (on November 24th and 25th), winning the audience over with her refreshingly frank and hilarious stage show.

November can be a depressing month in Quebec! There's nothing to look forward to between Halloween and Christmas, just a long stretch of freezing cold, low, grey skies and snowstorms looming the very day you've gone out without boots and tuque (as the local headgear is known).

The bad weather has not prevented hundreds of music fans turning up to Quebec's 'Grand Theatre' to catch Lynda Lemay in concert. Chilled noses and frozen ears are quickly forgotten once Ms. Lemay appears on stage, though, warming our hearts with hilarious songs such as Les colons (for which she received a much-deserved standing ovation), Cheri tu ronfles, Bande de degonflés and Au nom des petits frustres. Heating the crowd up with Rabelaisian-style ribaldry and 'no-holds-barred' humour, the inveterate performer has soon dispelled all thoughts of the winter chill outside.

But Lynda Lemay's repertoire is not simply about having fun. Beneath her barbed comments, she knows how to make her audience really think about sensitive issues like infidelity, child abuse and the fate of elderly relatives abandoned in old people's homes (cf.the song Ta place au sous-sol on her new album Coq a l'âme released on WEA). Lemay is a talented singer/comedian who can move her audience from laughter to tears within a few lines, without ever falling into the trap of overstatement of caricature. Thanks to her sensitivity and her perfect sense of timing, this woman can sing about anything from severely handicapped children to the sad lives of prostitutes and the hypocrisy of their clients.
Lynda Lemay gives a marathon performance on stage, her set lasting a full two hours and including some 30 songs. Her choice of decor - an exact replica of her own chaotically untidy bedroom - seems strange at first, but as the night wears on it proves to be the perfect backdrop for her three musicians and her simple, direct songs. Lemay's lyrics evoke a host of vivid scenarios -her new album should definitely have been called Cinema - but she anchors each song in human reality, surprising listeners with her simple warmth and disarming honesty.

By the end of the evening the audience are loathe to leave Lynda's side and when they finally file our of the exits, they are already vowing to come back and see her again, just as if she were an old friend! Well, I have to admit on Saturday night Lynda Lemay acquired one more devoted fan - her spirit certainly brightened up my long dark November night of the soul!

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Pascal Evans caught up with Lynda Lemay after the show and asked her a few questions about her new album and her biting sense of humour:

Lynda, tell us about the 'behind-the-scenes' preparations for your new album Du coq a l'âme?
Well, I really felt like trusting my own instincts this time round. I recently started managing my own career, you know - that way I get to have a say on everything I'm involved in. Besides, over the years I've come to realise that every time I have trusted my own instincts, fans have really liked the end result. So I totally went with the flow this time - I followed my gut instinct and invited Claude Lemay, aka Mego (no relation) to compose all the musical arrangements on the album. I had the feeling Mego would understand exactly what I wanted without me having to explain everything in great detail - and I was right! I gave him 'carte blanche' on the new album, only imposing one condition and that was that I didn't want him to try and give the album an overall sound. I told him, "Go easy, just take it one song at a time. If you feel like using a particular style on a song, go with your feelings but then do something completely different with the next one. Don't worry - just let yourself go! The album will end up with an overall 'sound' whatever happen. My singing and songwriting and your way of composing will make it coherent." And I must say I'm really happy with the end result!

Were you worried that the new arrangements of your songs would somehow make them less 'intimate' when you performed them live - after all, you are renowned for being very 'close' to the audience at your concerts ...
No, I wasn't worried about that. In fact, I found that Mego's orchestrations made up for the lack of feedback I normally get from the audience. The thing is, it's extremely hard to make humour work on a studio album when you don't hear people in the audience reacting to it. But I think Mego managed to make his music as expressive as my lyrics - when you hear the opening chords on Cretin, for instance, and they're a bit jangling and discordant you start to smile before you've even heard the rest of the song. The thing is I don't really need to use the same arrangements when I perform live, because the songs work in a different way in concert. The way I perform on stage and in the studio are entirely different. So the new songs will be adapted differently for my live shows.

You've tackled some fairly sensitive issues in your songs up to now - but is there any subject you know you wouldn't feel comfortable writing about?
I guess it's true to say that I'm not embarrassed to talk about things. I'll write songs about just about anything if I feel inspired. But I never sit down and plan things out beforehand, choosing which issue to tackle next. Things come to me naturally. I've already brought up the subject of paedophilia, but I haven't actually sung about it live on stage or on an album yet because you have to make certain choices about what people are willing to hear. I haven't really found the right music yet, but as far as the lyrics go I think I've got the right angle. But you have to be careful - it's obviously a very delicate subject. I did a song about incest recently which provoked a lot of violent and vengeful reactions. Nothing good came out of it. Listening to the song just left this very bad taste in your mouth - nobody got anything good out of it. I sang the song to my mother, actually, and she advised me not to use it on stage. And I haven't - I trust the reactions of my first audience a lot, you know.

What happens in Quebec with singers whose albums sell well is that they often get the chance to go on and launch a career in the States. Do you think there's any chance of that happening to you?
Well, anything's possible, but I can't say it's in my immediate plans. I've never had any particular ambition about making it in the States. My music publisher, Gerard Davoust, has brought up the example of Charles Aznavour and talked to me about the way in which he has his songs translated and then sings then in different languages, including English. But as things stand right now, I can't say I'm particularly interested in doing anything like that. I've got enough on my plate handling my career in Quebec and Europe and making time to see family and keep up with my songwriting. The thing I care about most is having my career continue as it is and feeling happy with what I'm doing.

For further information on Lynda Lemay check out: lynda-lemay.com

Pascal Evans