In honor of the late Renée Martel, who died in December, two musicians from the Gaspé region, Paul Daraîche and Laurence Jalbert, presented a light show on Friday in front of an audience won over in advance at the Festival en chanson de Petite -Valley.

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From the first song, Je pars à l’autre bout du monde, we expected an evening in a much more solemn tone, with Laurence Jalbert who was not on stage for the entire duration of the song.

However, as soon as If we could start again, the evening took on a much happier tone. About a hundred seats in the back section of the Chapiteau Quebecor were removed to make way for a dance floor, and many spectators, sometimes inebriated by alcohol, let themselves be carried away by the rhythm, particularly in J'ai un love that does not want to die.

“Renée was my cosmic twin. We were born on the same day, at the same time. It means that our parents played ass at the same time! chuckled Paul Daraîche.

"But above all, Renée was someone who was calm in all situations, no matter what was happening," he added.

A nod was also made during the evening to Julie Daraîche, Paul's sister, who died on April 26, 2022. To pay tribute to her, the two friends, one from Saint-François-de-Pabos and the another from Rivière-au-Renard, offered him a delicate interpretation of Que la lune est belle ce soir.

Émilie Daraîche, Paul's daughter, offered a touching medley of songs by Renée's father, Marcel Martel. "We were talking together about having grown up on tour, so that's why I want to give him this tribute," she said.

The particularly noisy floor of dancers did not seem to bother the musicians too much, except when Laurence wanted to make the people who speak loudly at the bar sing in chorus, the magnificent Perce lesclouds, composed by Paul Daraîche.

For someone "who doesn't know his own words", Laurence Jalbert didn't do too badly either with Le Lumberjack, a song that made more than one laugh. The dance evening continued with Le bateau du bonheur, a song by Renée Martel that Paul Daraîche has always appreciated.

The daughter of the clan in the first part

It was Émilie Daraîche who was responsible for opening the evening "in honor of our beautiful Renée", as she said between two songs. The young woman presented two songs from her repertoire, including her first radio hit, Remember. Even though she draws a lot of inspiration from lyrical pop, the country influence never seems too far away.