Paris (AFP)
"I haven't been drinking for three months, my liver was on strike. Well, two bars have gone bankrupt": the Belgian singer Arno gave a concert in Paris on Tuesday before interrupting his tour to be operated on for cancer of the pancreas, a disease which he revealed was affected this weekend.
The 70-year-old artist with a rocky voice and a white mane performed at the Trianon, the last concert before an operation planned in Brussels, then a six-week recovery.
This forced him to postpone 13 concerts of his tour in France, the Netherlands and Switzerland, in the wake of the release in September of his album "Santeboutique".
Obviously in good shape Tuesday evening, he made no other allusion to his illness than his joke on his abstinence, before the song "Lady Alcohol".
In recent weeks, he has performed on stage despite his chemotherapy.
"People who know I have cancer wonder why I'm on stage. But you have to know that it's the stage that gives me the most energy. When I know I'm going to play, I feel galvanized ", he assured Saturday in an interview with the Flemish daily De Standaard.
"At the beginning of November, my girlfriend told me that I had a yellow complexion," explained the artist from Ostend, the city which gives his name to an intimate song from his latest album ("Oostende good evening").
"I went to my doctor and he took a blood test. Shortly after, I got a phone call. I had to go to the hospital urgently. have been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer at an early stage, "added the rocker.
Known for his broken Tom Waits voice with a Flemish accent, his exuberance and his taste for excess, Arno began his career with the rock group TC Matic in the 80s, notably with the song "Whore, damn "(" Damn, damn, it's really good, we are all Europeans anyway ", say the lyrics).
It was then solo that he revealed himself to a wider audience, thanks to songs like his cover of "Girls by the sea" from another Belgian, Adamo.
© 2020 AFP