Festival d’été Francophone de Vancouver

The past weekend saw all the beautiful Frenchies of Vancouver come out to play for the 20th Anniversary Francophone Festival. Including wine, beer and as much poutine you could ever wish for while watching an amazing selection of Francophone musicians. You could not ask for a better way to spend the weekend.

Thursday night saw Le Centre on 7th and Granville open its doors to the gorgeous Ariane Mahryke Lemire. The self confessed prairie girl from Edmonton and winner of Western Canadian Chant’Ouest festival dazzled us with her folksy songs, husky vocals and sequined dress á la KT Tunstall. Her simple performance was the perfect way to show the audience what huge talent she really has.

Friday night really kicked the weekend off with a performance from Vancouver’s very own Mimosa. The three female front women were joined by their other 3 male members for a powerful, full band performance mixing it up with Samba, Jazz, French chanson and Cabaret. Sax virtuoso and flute player, Karen Graves provided her lungs for incredible sax solos while Rebecca Shoichet offered stage-like vocals and dance moves with a continual smile on her face. Anna Lumiere, the main driver behind the wheel of the band and song writer, had the keyboard and accordion skills that added the European touch and made all of us imagine we were sitting on a French café patio.

Although the dark, grey clouds wrapped themselves around the mountains and continued to threaten our day, the rain held off and the sun shined on 7th and Granville for Saturday’s finale street festival with Malajube opening up the show with a loud, pumping performance. The Montreal foursome had everything from crashing drums, electronic keyboards and intense, raucous vocals. With new album ‘Labryinthe’ just released, Malajube proved why they have been touring non-stop, nominated for numerous music awards and why they are loved worldwide.

I wasn’t too familiar with the next band but when Karkwa opened with haunting pianos and vocals and a second drummer/percussionist, I knew this was going to be a good show. Although I couldn’t understand any of their lyrics, the five-piece from Montreal were utterly captivating and whatever lyrics lead singer Louis-Jean Cormier was singing about sounded stunning. Then again, everything sounds stunning in French. With three albums already under their belt, I know what I will be adding to my Christmas list this year.

Everyone knew the festival finale was next as the girls lined the front of the stage to await Pierre Lapointe. Again, I know very little about him but I have been told several times that he is Quebec’s musical darling and he puts on an amazing performance which he proved a few minutes later. Dressed in all black with a leather suit jacket, the boyishly handsome Lapointe was assisted by his full band and a grand piano for a dramatic performance that left everyone’s mouth open. Including mine.