>Michel Bérubé: C’est Très Bon.

Last Updated on: 24th April 2012, 02:43 pm

>You know, I went to this little concert 8 days ago, and I’m only getting around to writing about it now. Oh well, better late than never I guess.

As I’ve said a couple of times, I organize a group of people who want to practice their French. Somebody noticed that a French singer named Michel Bérubé was coming to the River Run Centre. I thought it would be an awesome idea, so we bought tickets. It was definitely a good time.

The first thing I noticed when I got there was all the volunteers who were meeting and greeting folks and helping them get stuff were speaking French. How awesome that River Run had enough French-speaking volunteers!

We had pretty sweet seats, right near the front. I think we had the best seats in the house. I asked for seats that would allow a little more floor space at my feet for pooch, since we were in the smaller hall, the one that didn’t have the boxes like the main hall. I guess they put us right at the front.

It was a miserable evening, so I was praying that everyone would turn up, partly because it would suck to not have people come, and partly because I’d bought the tickets, so hoped I would be paid back. Thankfully, all but one person made it, and the one person is paying me back. The poor girl drove from out of town and then got lost in the blinding rain and had to turn back, defeated. That would have profoundly sucked.

We sat down, and things got rolling. The first surprise I got was that the folks at River Run knew about our group. I don’t think I mentioned our name when I bought the tickets. I just said I needed 9 tickets and to have some foot-room for the pooch. But they publically welcomed our group to the show! How cool is that?

The singer that opened for Bérubé was an opera-type singer named Caroline Déry, and I got a little nervous. I wasn’t a giant fan of opera, and I was right in the front! I wasn’t sure if poor Trix would be a fan either. But she didn’t move a muscle.

The singer was actually quite fun, and when she was talking, I could understand her perfectly well. There were points when she was singing that I had trouble, but for the most part, I got it. They seemed to get it that some of us would not be as fluent as others, so spoke clearly, and made lots of jokes about speaking a second language along the way.

There were two funny things that happened in her act. At one point, this other guy came zooming down saying that he was going to join her on stage. At first, I didn’t know what was going on, but soon learned that it was part of the plan. He said he really liked her and couldn’t figure out how to win her heart. He’d practiced his French and his singing. Then he thought maybe he could try something else. Then, he reached right under *my* chair, and pulled out a rose! Wow. I didn’t know I was that front and centre. I think I turned a wee bit red.

Then, at another point, she walked right over to me, leaned over me, and asked for a certain person to come forward. She wanted him to come on stage with her. So, down he came from behind me. I was glad I had positioned Trixie right under my chair, and not in the space between me and the next person’s chair, where the staff seemed to think she’d have more room, because the space between the chairs was right where the guy came down from.

She brought him to the front, and said she wanted him particularly because she knew him personally, and knew he didn’t know too much French. Then, she sat him down, and started to sing. What she sang sounded like “You’re no good, you have nothing to offer me, you lack spirit, but I adore you.” We were all killing ourselves laughing because we understood what she was saying, and the poor fellow didn’t. By the end, he said “What was that all about?” and we just giggled. Later, I got to ask her if he knew what she had planned, and she said she warned him, but he seemed to have forgotten. Well, he won’t forget now.

When she was done, the main act came out. I had looked him up on YouTube, and it seemed like he had a nice voice. He did. He sang a lot of songs that I didn’t know, but they were pretty. At one point he spoke English and said that his drummer didn’t understand French, and the drummer said “I know French. C’est très bon. See?” So every time he would look at him, he would go “C’est très bon.” So he did a whole song where the guys backed him up by singing “Si bon, si bon.” It was kinda funny.

After the show, people were speaking to him, and one of the ushers grabbed me and said “come meet him!” and dragged me to him! I was turning 40 shades of red. I tried to speak French, and I think I was doing ok, but alass, he started speaking English to me, and nothing I could do could get him to speak French again. Hmmm. That wasn’t a ringing endorsement.

But it was a good time. I had no idea going in what to expect. I’m glad I was pleasantly surprised.

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