Cœur de pirate Live at Massey Hall

Massey Hall, Toronto's most prestigious music venue (which dates from 1894) plays host to a series of shows sponsored by SiriusXM Canada, "Live at Massey Hall", which showcase contemporary Canadian artists. In this Anglophone city, it was - as this guest post from Mark Sullivan reveals - a young French-Canadian artist, Béatrice Martin or Cœur de pirate - that wowed all of Canada in what was the top-rated show from the 2014 series...

Any one who doubts that Béatrice Martin is the supreme writer and performer of popular music of her generation should look at the 28-minute film of highlights of her 31 May 2014 show from the "Live at Massey Hall" concert series, which was recently released on-line. Shot in black-and-white from and from several angles, and with a perfect acoustic recording, this film takes us far beyond the thousands of amateur recordings of CdP that crowd Youtube. As amateur filming was not permitted, this is a unique record of a completely professional performance, with elegant bilingual introductions. It is so good that one can only hope that the full concert, which must have included as many songs again, will be issued on DVD.

There is a voice-over by Béatrice at the start, and the audience is seen entering over the sound of the first track. The songs featured are:

"Le Long de large"
"Francis"
"Ensemble" (with additional percussion)
"Golden Baby"
"Adieu" (the 'last song')
"Place de la République"
"Comme les Enfants" (with audience participation)
"Berceuse" (played over the closing credits)

It is notable that - as the credits show - Coeur de Pirate has kept all four of her band for the whole six years of her career so far – Renaud Bastien, rhythm guitar (her lead musician and co-producer of her ‘Trauma’ album); Emmanuel Éthier, lead guitar; Alexandre Gauthier, bass; and Julien Blais, drums. No wonder the quality is so high.

Check the video below for yourselves:

Update: 

The concert was reviewed by Aesthetic Magazine Toronto in an article which featured not only some great concert photography but also hinted at some of the Anglophone material that may well feature on her new album, to which Béatrice and her label have been dropping a few hints of late...