Premier Legault offers state funeral for Karl Tremblay of Les Cowboys Fringants
Posted November 16, 2023 11:59 am.
Last Updated November 16, 2023 12:56 pm.
If Karl Tremblay’s family agrees, Les Cowboys Fringants singer will be entitled to a state funeral, Premier François Legault said.
Premier Legault, who is also the MNA for L’Assomption, which includes part of Repentigny where Les Cowboys Fringants was formed, paid tribute to the singer on Thursday morning.
He announced that steps had begun to offer a state funeral, if his family agrees.
“There’s something about it, you can feel an immense wave of love and sadness, and I’ve rarely seen anything like it. I don’t remember ever seeing that. National funerals are there to meet a demand from Quebecers,” explained Legault, adding that he “feels this demand” from Quebecers.
“We feel a wave of sadness”, but “also a wave of beauty”, explained the Premier saying a few lyrics from the song “Toune d’automne”.
Many Cowboys Fringants fans are planning to gather across Quebec on Thursday night to pay tribute to Tremblay, “the soul of a whole generation and a people”, who died on Wednesday of prostate cancer.
At 7 p.m., a rally is planned on the Plains of Abraham, in Quebec City, “to honour the memory of a modern poet, a storyteller of our lives”. It was on these very Plains that the band gave a memorable concert last summer, in front of 90,000 festival-goers at the Festival d’été de Québec, when the singer defied illness by every means possible to deliver a flawless show.
At the same time, Montrealers are planning to gather in Parc Jeanne-Mance to celebrate Tremblay’s life.
The organizers of both events, which originated on social networks, hope that the wakes will be held in a “festive and friendly” atmosphere to which “only the Cowboys have always known how to invite us”.
With this in mind, they invite participants to bring along “your musical instruments, your joie de vivre and your desire to celebrate one of our greats”.
“Join us for a moment of recollection where the stars will light our way and each melody will recall the precious moments we shared thanks to Karl and the Cowboys Fringants. The stars fly by, but they never really go out,” reads the description of the event.
Flags will be flown at half-mast in several locations, including Quebec City, Montreal and Repentigny, home of the Cowboys Fringants.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published in French on Nov. 16, 2023, and translated by CityNews.
