Rowdy film captures Quebec’s hugely popular Les Cowboys Fringants in concert, January 8
Screening at Alliance Française and co-presented by Visions Ouest, the documentary of the folk-rockers’ rip-roaring 2023 show was shot less than a year before lead singer’s death
Les Cowboys Fringants: Québec/14/01/2023
Karl Tremblay
Visions Ouest Productions, La Tribu, and Alliance Française Vancouver present a screening of Les Cowboys Fringants: Québec/14/01/2023 at 6161 Cambie Street on January 8 at 7 pm
IN JANUARY 2023, Quebec’s hugely popular folk-rock group Les Cowboys Fringants brought down the house at the 18,000-plus-seat Centre Vidéotron—complete with stage-diving, lighter-waving, and singing-and-dancing audience members.
Now folk fans can relive the magic in a new documentary that was shot that night in Quebec City—an experience that holds extra meaning now that the beloved ensemble has lost its lead singer. When Karl Tremblay passed away from prostate cancer in November 2023, music fans in Quebec reacted with the same widespread mourning that the loss of Gord Downie had prompted in English-speaking Canada, resulting in a public memorial tribute that drew thousands.
Les Cowboys Fringants: Québec/14/01/2023 shows how charismatic the néo-trad band’s frontman really was, surrounded here by rowdy bandmates Marie-Annick Lépine (his wife) tearing into her fiddle, JF Pauzé ripping into guitar, and Jérôme Dupras playing bass and a bit of percussion, all amped up with extra musicians for the rollicking concert event, complete with video projections. The biggest in the group’s Les Antipodes tour, the show broke attendance and ticket-sales records, and showed the band at its most fringants, or “frisky”.
Highlights on film include Dupras pulling out a ladder, stripping off his tie and shirt, and diving into an eagerly awaiting mosh pit, as well as a frenzied finale to the Cowboys’ massive hit “Les Étoiles filantes”. Shown on the big screen, the doc gives viewers a vivid feeling of being in the crowd.
Hard to believe that Tremblay, who has the audience firmly in his hands here, would be gone before the end of the same year, at only 47 years of age. You can imagine the singer, celebrated for his lyricism and expressivity, enjoying the way his rowdy legacy lives on onscreen. 
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