Moriarty

When I arrived at the theatre Granite, Moriarty was just finishing the sound check of the concert planned for the evening. That is where I should take them to the other side of the City. In their minibus, Arthur tells me where do they come from, evokes Jérôme Deschamps, the tour they’re making around France, the previous years spent finishing touches of their first album, I explained to him the concept of the take-away shows and where we are going to : the St. Joseph Basilica, a beautiful neo-Gothic church where I want to bring them before nightfall.

There is no need to push them a lot, the five men are easily playing the game. Everybody know this story called “Jimmy", and Moriarty (whose name is coming from a novel by Jack Kerouac) knows more than everyone else how to tell them. With a timeless elegance, the voice of Rosemary resonates deep in the heart of the church, revisiting the title in a rough and grandiose version, not far from the American Plains rural blues.

Arthur got an incredible guitar, a Czech guitar in metal from "1957" or so he says. When you know that the roots of Moriarty family come from the theatre, and more particularly take its origins in Jerome Deschamps and Macha Makaïeffe’s plays, it’s not a surprise to discover a harmonica, bells or a luggage-drum. The scene of the folk cabaret “Lovelinesse” will take place in a confessional lighted with candles.

The night falls quickly during the winter. There is no more sunshine coming from the stained glasses. Anyway, Rosemary seems to love this atmosphere and starts to cover Depeche Mode. Here, in the middle of a church lost in the darkness, "Enjoy the Silence" takes a religious dimension, quasi-mystical, almost unsettling with a natural ease, the settings are perfect, and the band improvises brilliantly. With a waking-the-deads-voice, the diva then undertakes a funeral march a capella, an old traditional song, sublime and haunted, which seems to have survived for centuries.

Chez Manu