She admits it over the phone: “It's a bit impressive.
It is a historic reopening.
It seems that even during the Nazi occupation, the hall had not closed.
“At 81, Brigitte Fontaine once again created the event by singing this Sunday evening for the reopening of the Olympia, dormant since March 11 due to the coronavirus epidemic.
This concert - initially scheduled for March 29 - was saved because it was planned in a seated room and was not sold out.
It will take place in front of 1,300 distant spectators, while the Olympia can hold up to 2,800 standing.
“For those who cannot come, there will be another Olympia next March,” explains Brigitte Fontaine.
Will his fans be masked?
“It will be the surprise.
I don't care as long as I see their eyes.
"
"I have a beautiful mask with the Rolling Stones logo"
How did she experience her confinement on Île Saint-Louis?
“It was a bit unreal.
Around me, some are dead, others are healed.
It worried me, like everyone else, no more and no less.
But the corona, I don't have it.
I have a beautiful mask with the Rolling Stones logo on it.
And when I forget it, I am reminded that I have to pay 130 bucks.
Did he miss the music?
“No, I wrote.
I didn't know what to do, so I found a technique to write lying down, lyrics for songs, a new book… ”
Does she rehearse for this return on stage?
“I never prepare anything.
I will be accompanied by Yan Péchin, an extraordinary guitarist and a Venetian stunt
(Editor's note: his hair…)
.
It will be a pleasure but also a huge effort on my part.
The summer went very badly, thank you.
I have a broken skeleton, I had a stroke alert, it's scary.
I could go on with the list for a long time… But you have to do this gig, so I do.
"
She will present a good half of the songs from her 19th last album, the aptly named "Newfoundland", released in January.
A scathing and touching record, poetic as well as electric, which recalls by its freedom the last album of his great friend Jacques Higelin.
A hymn to life, a middle finger to death.
When we last met in Paris, Brigitte Fontaine described it as her “most punk” album, influenced by the wind of revolt that was blowing in the country.
"I would like them to go even further," she proclaimed.
Let them destroy.
"
Brigitte Fontaine, "Vendetta"
In "Newfoundland", her rocky voice and unfiltered lyrics are so many flashes in a storm of guitars.
In "Vendetta", she launches "that we impale all males", rhymes "strong sex" and "to death".
She invents the rhyme destroy with "J'irai pas".
“I blame society,” she comments.
This is rotten.
By the money, by the way of looking at the world and the rest.
But they are adults.
We must forgive them.
I have never been an adult.
"
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She also knows how to make our sensitive chords vibrate when she sings "My heart is a butt that cannot be extinguished".
“I wrote it in a moment of enormous suffering
(Editor's note: it broke several vertebrae in a fall in 2016)
.
Music helps me cope with the pain.
"
EDITOR'S RATING: 4/5
“Terre Neuve”
, by Brigitte Fontaine, 15.99 euros (CD), Verycords;
in concert this Sunday (full) and March 23, 2021 at the Olympia.
