Thursday, April 21, 2022, Bernard Lavillers is in concert at Caen Zenith (Calvados). At 75, the traveling singer, despite a heart operation and a lasting Covid, is still in good shape.

The last date of your 2022 tour (58 concerts) dates back two weeks: is it a break for the elections?

No during the Easter holidays, people are on vacation, we don’t do too many concerts. But there (interview carried out on April 14), I am at home in the South, in my farm studio in the Var, I have the die, a bronchitis, it is the second continuation of the Covid. After my heart operation (in 2019 and a new alert in 2021), I cannot take cortisone. As for the elections…

Don’t worry, will you be in Caen on April 21?

But yes, without this damn bronchitis, I’m fine.

You sing in I like her, title of your last album, Under a huge sun: “I’ll have to leave but I promise I’ll be back”, is it a summary of your life: leaving, but always coming back?

Yes, it’s a song about my city Saint-Étienne. At 19, he had to leave to avoid the constraints, because after that it would have been too late.

I lived abroad, but I always come back to France, we are good here.

This refers to Orelsan who, in Civilization says: “Before, I dreamed of abandoning France, I’m going to stay, I’d rather have it changed. »

He’s not wrong, I like Orelsan. I even consider that he is the sharpest at the moment.

For your concert in Caen, what can your fans expect?

We draw, with my six musicians, from 25 songs, from the last album, titles that are 15 years old and older, La grande tide (1975).

Haven’t heard from him for a long time?

Yes, but it’s completely adapted to our time: war, climate…

And your hits?

Yes, Dark Ideas, Stand the ghetto, Salsa. Traffic, no. Pigalle la Blanche either, I’m fed up.

40 years ago, you could be decried, today it’s unanimous as for your last record, what does it do to you?

Who decides on unanimity? Like 40 years ago, I don’t care. The public knows that I do not return my jacket.

Precisely your ideas, your hopes of always, they are not disappointed?

I know it doesn’t change the world, there’s always war, corruption, but that’s my aesthetic dimension.

A song can’t change the world, but it can make people laugh.

What are your next trips?

Well, Brazil is not the time. I would like India, but you have to leave for a very long time. I have to find a poet-singer on the spot who will guide me.

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