At 71, Philippe Manoeuvre takes the stage with his memories, his ghost records and an accomplice on guitar, Yarol Poupaud
In A child of rock tellsthe old “Tintin in the Land of Rock” rewinds a life spent hanging around backstage, hotel rooms and smoke-filled rooms, letting the audience pull the threads of memory. Conversation with a storyteller who has decided to become, for once, the subject of the story.
>>> Philippe Manoeuvre will be on December 1st and 8th at the Théâtre de l'Oeuvre in Paris then on tour
“Tintin in the land of rock”
WECB: On stage, you tell your life, but especially that of others. What do you see yourself as in this show?
Philippe Maneuver: I see myself a bit like Tintin in the land of rock. I was a kid, a reporter: at 20, I found myself parachuted into that world. A few months before, I was at home alone with my records, and suddenly I entered where I had always wanted to be since I was 14. Today I am 71 years old. This is the age when you have the right to look behind you and ask yourself: “But what did we experience there?” That's what the show is: a few stories that happened to me and that I still remember, put back in order to share them.
Concretely, how was this show made?
At the beginning of the summer I went to Yarol Poupaudwith the director Jeremy Lippmann. We listened to music, ate chicken, walked around the garden… and in the evening, I started telling them my stories. In three evenings, we had three totally different shows possible. They chose the funniest, most astonishing anecdotes. They then sent me a transcription, and I spent all of July and August working on it: how to explain this story, how to make it clearer, funnier? At the start, a producer told me: “We want to get you on stage.” I answered him: “I’m not a comedian.” He cut me off: “We don’t want you to make us laugh, we want you to tell us about your adventures with Mick Jagger in the world’s great hotels.” From there it was simple. I remained what I always was: a guy who talks about how rock fell into his lap.
At 71, going on stage is already a risk.
Chaos, the audience and the fourth wall
There is a real element of improvisation and interaction with the public. Was it important for you to keep this slightly chaotic side, like in a good rock concert?
Yes, absolutely. At one point, I go down into the audience. And it is he who decides the rest of the operations. I can't reveal too much, but there has to be a surprise. The director told me: “There, we break down the fourth wall.” That impressed him a lot. That suits me: I put myself in danger, but that's also what rock is. At 71, going on stage is already a risk. The real danger is perhaps when I come back down: am I going to break my face or not? (Laughs)
In the meantime, I continue to go to concerts all summer. Lynyrd Skynyrd, John Fogerty, AC/DC… It gives me a big kick in the back: you see that this music is still there, that the songs lift people’s morale. With this show, I'm trying to do the same thing: like when you put on an old record that you know by heart, and you rediscover why you love it.
When you go on stage, what exactly do you want to convey?
I think I want to transmit a state of mind. We all grew up with the idea that rock was this thing that constantly tested the limits: volume, good taste, tolerability. It doesn't provide solutions, it doesn't fix anything, but it allows us to hold on. Young people today have, basically, the same problems as us: the future, work, love, family… Simply, everything goes faster, everything is more saturated. Rock doesn't solve that. But it offers a language, an energy, a way of saying: “I don’t agree, but I’m here.” If someone leaves the room saying to themselves: “I’m going to listen to this record again, I’m going to start a band, I’m going to scream a good laugh instead of swallowing it all,” then we won't have wasted our evening.
2026 could be a very good year for rock.
From the “club of 27” to the “club of 72”
What is the state of rock for you in 2025?
We missed the 27 club, very clearly. (Smile.) We're joining the 72 club. It's strange to see these rock heroes growing old with us: some miraculously stand up, others are still incredible on stage. Rock hasn't aged a bit. What has changed is the context: people have looked around, they listened to everything, sifted everything. You open Instagram, you see seventeen year old kids playing better than most adults. And yet, we always want new groups, new cries of rage. I am convinced that there is a generation coming, which will start screaming again in cellars, in tiny rooms, with amps that are too loud. Frankly, I tell myself that 2026 could be a very good year for rock. The need is there. The electricity is there. All that's missing is a spark.
On stage, Yarol Poupaud is your companion in disorder. Why him?
Yarol and I have known each other for a long time. The first time I saw him, he was playing at Gibus, he was barely twenty years old, he was already a baby rocker with everything in place: the sound, the look, the energy. We then worked together for years Johnny Hallyday : 2005, 2006, 2007… We found ourselves on the road, in the studio, on tour. You see people at work, you see how they react when things get hot. When we started talking about this show, he was the one who reminded me: “If you need a guitar player, I’m here.” And I said to myself: “Of course it’s him.” I trust him, humanly and musically. It's my perfect mess companion.
I put my ego in my back pocket, with a tissue on top.
Concretely, what does he bring to the show, beyond the guitar?
He brings the sound. The music is what prevents the show from becoming a simple conference. I tell a story, and he sends the riff that goes with it: suddenly, you have AC/DC, the Stones, James Brown or whoever comes barreling into the room. It changes everything: people are no longer just listening to a guy talk, they're reliving the songs. And then, he is a musician who knows how to put himself at the service of the thing. We said to ourselves from the start: we're not here to bargain for light, we're here to put on a great show. I put my ego in my back pocket, with a tissue on top. We laugh, we play, we try to spread something.
Is there a moment in the show where the music clearly takes over the story?
Yes. There's one song that I'm almost on the verge of tears every time. I'm not going to spoil it, but it's a piece that touches on something deep, on an era, on people who are no longer here. There, I am no longer the rock critic, I am no longer “Mr. TV”. I'm just a 71 year old guy who music reminds me of a whole part of his life. And you feel that the room is rocking with you. It's for these moments that we make this kind of show.
You also talk about a rather special end to the show…
Yes, in the end, I give hugs. People come and hug me. We thank each other, we congratulate ourselves for being there, alive, in the same room. We're coming out of not crazy years: pandemic, anxiety, crises of all kinds… There, for an hour and a half, we listened to stories, music, we laughed, sometimes we were moved. It's stupid to say, but we say to ourselves: “It’s 2025, we’re still here, life isn’t so bad anyway.” If rock still serves a purpose today, it's this: to remind us that we're alive.
You have spent your life introducing others. How does it feel to become, for once, the subject of a show?
It's very strange. All my career, I have been the voice-over: the one who announces, who writes about others, who presents them on stage or on TV. There, suddenly, it's my name on the poster. I don't think I'm a star, that's not the idea. I'm just trying to sort out my memory and share some stories before they get lost. And then, people also come with their own memories: they grew up with the same records, the same concerts, the same posters on the wall. We compare our memories, in a way.
The first rock electrocution
If you had to go back to the origin: what is the first rock shock that you tell in the show?
I start with my mother's kitchen, in Châlons-sur-Marne, in 1964. The radio is on, and suddenly something happens. A song, a sound, a rhythm… I don't understand what it is, but I know it has just changed my life. From there, everything was organized around that: the records, the radio shows, the first concerts, the magazines, the trips. This is where the rock kid appears. The show is a bit like that: how rock came to the child, and how the child tried to follow.
What if you had to give just one good reason to come see your show to someone who has never bought a Rock & Folk in their life?
I would tell him:“Grit your teeth, and you'll be laughing after ten minutes. You don't have to be a specialist, you don't have to know everyone. If you've ever loved a song very much in your life, you'll get the hang of it.” (laughs)
>>> Philippe Manoeuvre will be on December 1st and 8th at the Théâtre de l'Oeuvre in Paris then on tour
