THE BEST OF MUSIC D’ICI
ADISQ gala hits right notes
Le Gala de l’ADISQ kicked off in high fashion Sunday night at Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier with a trio of eclectic Québécois artists. The music awards show opened with the wild, woolly, wacky hip-hop of Alaclair Ensemble, with the hot happening outfit giving a shout-out to the history of Québécois rap, name-checking KCLMNOP and Sans Pression. Then came the sophisticated pop of newish artist Charlotte Cardin who’s making waves on both sides of the border. The opening sequence concluded with singersongwriter Daniel Bélanger doing his distinctive it-could-onlyhappen-in-Quebec rock thing.
In short, it was a reminder that the francophone music scene ici is bursting at the seams with talent and in most every genre imaginable. That, after all, is what this music gala is all about. It’s designed to shine the spotlight on the best of what’s being produced in la belle province and that’s exactly what Sunday’s highly-entertaining show did.
Safia Nolin, who won as discovery of the year at last year’s gala, took home one of the evening’s most prestigious trophies, winning as female artist of the year. That category is voted by the public and is a testament to how Nolin’s hard-hitting, emotionally-wrenching songs have touched music listeners here. There was a big controversy last year with many complaining that she didn’t arrive at the gala wearing a designer dress and instead was sporting her usual grungy style. And yes she was as grungy as ever Sunday — and more power to her for being herself.
Patrice Michaud won as male artist of the year and his hit Kamikaze was voted song of the year. Both these awards are also decided by the public.
An honorary Félix trophy was given to the late Leonard Cohen for his entire oeuvre and his son Adam Cohen was on hand to accept it, during a tribute that featured Richard Séguin, Les soeurs Boulay and Michaud singing the Cohen staple Hallelujah.
“Thirty years ago, they tried to give him the Governor General’s Award and he refused it,” Adam Cohen said. “But this one he’d be happy to accept. He’d want me to say two things. Firstly, one of his biggest regrets at the end of his life was that he couldn’t spend his last days in Montreal. And he wanted to weigh in on one of the burning debates in Montreal — whether the smoked meat was better at Schwartz’s or at The Main. He preferred The Main.”
The ADISQ Gala was hosted, as it has been for years, by fasttalking funnyman Louis-José Houde and he killed it in his opening with a routine in which he chronicled how he described various Québécois artists to his sister who lives in the U.S.
Speaking of the Alaclair Ensemble, it was a big night for them and the entire hip-hop scene here. It was only the second time ever that the hip-hop album of the year trophy was handed out during the main broadcast gala — the last time this happened was way back in 1999! And it was Alaclair Ensemble who won hip-hop album of the year for their inspired off-beat collection Les Frères Cueilleurs.
“It’s not just a victory for Alaclair Ensemble, it’s a victory for all of Quebec hip-hop,” said Ogden (aka Robert Nelson) from Alaclair Ensemble. “We share this with the rappers of the past and the present and the future.”
Les soeurs Boulay won as group of the year, an award they won two years ago, and both Mélanie and Stéphanie Boulay were quick to underline that it still meant a lot to win a second time.
“We won the same prize two years ago and we thought it was a little too quick,” said Mélanie Boulay in an interview. “We thought at the time that we wanted to be in this business for a very long time and so maybe this kind of confirms this. When we first won this prize, we kind of felt like impostors because we hadn’t been in the music milieu for all that long. And we worried that we wouldn’t last that long. But now we’re going to take a break. I’m about to have a baby but we really have the intention of being part of the musical landscape here for a very long time. And this gives us hope that it’s going to be possible to stay around for a very long time.”
On stage, the sisters from New Richmond, Quebec used the occasion to make a plea for the different levels of government to work to make sure that singersongwriters are properly compensated for their work.
“If we don’t talk about this now, maybe at some point there won’t be the same quality of music that we have now,” said Stéphanie Boulay, in an interview backstage. “If the amount of financing goes down, it’s only natural that the quality goes down as well. People won’t be able to make a living from music. Music is our heritage, it’s our identity. Culture is important. It’s an injustice that companies are enriching themselves on the backs of creators while the creators are becoming poorer and poorer. Apple and the distributors are making more and more money and at the same time there is less and less of this money being redistributed to the creators.”
Bélanger won two awards, for pop album for Paloma and for best show by a singer-songwriter. Céline Dion’s Encore un soir won as adult-contemporary album of the year, though Dion was not on hand to receive the trophy. Klô Pelgag won as singer-songwriter of the year for her album L’Étoile thoracique and Pelgag made a point on stage of underlining that it was the first time a woman had won this award in 24 years. Turns out that the last woman to snare the award was Francine Raymond way back in 1993. Pelgag said she was convinced a lot more women would be winning the trophy in the years to come.