NO, the video above was definitely not taken from Roch Voisine's Sunday night performance at Festival de montgolfières...

I got excited when I heard that Roch Voisine was playing at Festival de montgolfières. I had long been a fan of Roch. Finally, I thought that I would now get the chance to watch him perform his hit songs like "Hélène".

Roch Voisine had won the Juno Award for Male Vocalist of the Year in 1994. In 1997 he was made an Officer of the Order of Canada. He has evolved into both a Canadian and international star.

Little did I know, what was in store for all who attended… One hit song after another… from other artists. What?! The songs he performed included hits from John Denver, Willy Nelson, Johnny Cash, and the list goes on. His “interpretations” as he called them, was basically singing American classics mostly in English, accompanied by sporadic French translations of selected parts of these American classics. He did this for well over an hour.

Roch put on a great performance… if he was 21, and, if he was using Festival de montgolfières to “get noticed“, and break into the music scene. But, was I the only one who was wondering, if this guy had gone ‘crazy’ or something?

As Wikipedia elaborates "Cover Bands" play songs written and recorded by other artists, usually well-known songs (as compared to "original" bands which play music they themselves have written). There are a wide variety of cover bands - some cover bands play material from particular decades, for example a 1980s cover band. Others focus exclusively on the music of a particular group, usually iconic groups, and are called tribute bands: it is not uncommon to find Led Zeppelin tribute bands, Pink Floyd tribute bands, Oasis tribute bands, Aerosmith tribute bands, or U2 tribute bands. Some cover bands will play a variety of song styles, of widely different artists, genres and decades. Another type of cover band is one that covers songs in a different genre or style than that of the original composition.

Roch’s "cover band" performance reminds me of a movie experience that I have had. Have you ever watched one of those movies on TV, that you hope will get better, and it doesn’t? I hope Roch eventually sang at least on or two of his original songs by the end of the concert. But, after waiting nearly two hours for one of his original songs, I was not about to listen any longer to his Cover Band performance. Maybe Roch might try to further impress us with an “air band” performance the next time?

The video above was just one of the many songs I had expected to hear from the Canadian and international star that Roch Voisine has become.