Quebecois quartet. Four lead voices, four harmony voices, four great musicians, four jokers. A foursome of rhythm and melody and passion and joy.
Le Vent du Nord are Nicolas Boulerice (piano and hurdy-gurdy), Simon Beaudry (guitar and bouzouki), Olivier Demers (fiddle and guitar) and Réjean Brunet (button accordion, electric bass and jew's harp). They play in traditional French Canadian style, a genre that draws influences from the music of France, Ireland, Scotland, the US and beyond. With one distinctive characteristic - Podorythmie. Foot tapping, foot stomping, call it what you will, but it's a remarkable means of providing percussion. A board is strapped to the floor, miked up, and the musician sits and raps out a rythym with their feet.
Brunet got his feet working on occasions, but the bulk of the percussive effort fell to Demers. Remember the old childhood challenge of tapping your head whilst rubbing your tummy? That seems a piece of cake once you've watched a man banging out a complex rhythm with his feet, melody from the fiddle in his hands, and backing vocals at the same time....
Songs and tunes are a mix of traditional standards, little known discoveries and their own compositions. The majority of songs follow the call and response format, with the opportunities they bring for harmony vocals. There are a few slower numbers, but the majority are rousing, uplifting. That all the lyrics are in French mattered not a sou. The distinctive drone of the hurdy-gurdy is increasingly a rarity nowadays, and makes the bands instrumentation readily identifiable.
Comedy there is too. Well coordinated banter at each other's expense, clowning around the stage, amusing anecdotes within the introductions. The humour went musical too when a Demers guitar intro turned into Stairway to Heaven. Appropriate when a storming solo from Boulerice later revealed him to be the Jimmy Page of the hurdy-gurdy (a phrase I never imagined I'd ever be writing!).
At the end the band had the audience up on their feet, clapping and singing along, to leave everyone on a high. Superb musicians, but also genuine entertainers, Le Vent du Nord are one of the best live acts you could see.
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