Simple Plan delivered an emotional show in David's hometown Matane

For the first time in their career, this past Saturday Simple Plan’s schedule finally led them to the city of Matane, QC – the hometown of the band’s bass player David Desrosiers. And even though David has been looking forward to this show for quite some time, due to his continuing struggles with depression, he wasn’t able to attend it (nor will he attend any of the upcoming U.S. and Canadian shows). For that reason, it was all the more important for Simple Plan to perform a fantastic show for the local crowd – to make David proud.

Earlier in the day, Chuck, Pierre, Jeff and Sebastien were invited to Matane’s city hall, where they all signed the city’s guestbook and also thanked the city officials for taking part in the Municipal Employment Plan, which is supported by the Union of the Quebec municipalities and the Simple Plan Foundation. It urges cities to create jobs for young people from youth centers, who would’ve otherwise had difficult times finding an employment.

Check out some of the pictures from SP’s visit to Matane’s city hall in the gallery:

A couple hours later, the four members of Simple Plan got on the stage at the Éole en musique festival in Matane, from where they could see the very diverse crowd that came to hear them play. Whether they were longtime fans from Montreal and its surrounding areas or over-40-year-olds in the back rows – thousands of people of all ages gathered to see Simple Plan play their bassplayer’s hometown. And the spiritual presence of David could be felt throughout the whole evening, as the musicians made quite a number of nods to their missing bass player.

Once again (just like in La Tuque), Pierre introduced Welcome To My Life with a very emotional speech regarding David, where he even noted that he was wearing a rose on his t-shirt that day to remind him of David (‘Desrosiers’ means “from the rose bush”). Below, you can watch Pierre’s speech on camera along with an English translation (big thanks to Janie for it):

“Of course.. we are sad that he can’t be here to share this moment with us tonight. If you follow us on social media, you know a bit of the history. If you don’t know it.. David is going through difficult times and it’s very important to him to reestablish himself and to be in a good health in long term, so he had to miss the show tonight. We’re thinking about him, I have my little rose here for “Desrosiers”. Tonight, because it’s his hometown, and because it’s our first time here, I want you to scream very loud for him. I want you to sing with me because we’re thinking about him. We love him so much and because he’s not here, we’ll make you a promise: we promise that we’ll come back to Matane again – with David. So, sing this next song with me. We dedicate it to David. It’s called Welcome To My Life.”

– Pierre Bouvier –