Erwan, the most westerly fan of Le Taulier, recounts his journeys from his island to go to concerts

His life was undoubtedly turned on a kick. At least that’s what he likes to say. An old slap shot sent to the jukebox of the hotel run by his parents on the island of Molène. It is on this pebble located thirty minutes by boat from the port of Conquet (Finistère) that Erwan Masson discovered Johnny Hallyday. “I was 8 or 9 years old. I was pissed off and banged on the jukebox. »The first notes of Nobody’s son then echo in the bar of the Kastell an doal hotel. A track released in 1971 inspired by a Creedence Clearwater Revival hit by a very uplifted Johnny Hallyday. “I knew Johnny because one of my cousins ​​was a fan. But I had never heard it like that. “

Erwan Masson doesn’t know it yet, but this song will change his life. It will allow him to leave his island of Molène several times a year, to follow the Taulier concerts. This piece of land, he cherishes it because he grew up there. But he admits that he has always been happy to leave it from time to time, escaping for a few days the daily life of the family hotel in which he has always worked and which he had transformed into a real museum. “It’s not nothing to go to Paris when you live in Molène. You have to take the boat, the bus, the train, and book a hotel. On the island, I was called an extraterrestrial. But it was such a pleasure every time for me to escape! I met people from all over. The concert, I knew it by heart, I went especially to discuss with the other fans ”. In the Masson family, Erwan was not the first to do so. Fan of Elvis Presley, his mother had already traveled, going so far as to meet the King in the United States.

“I am not an enlightened fan”

Four years ago, it was she who came to wake Erwan Masson in the middle of the night. A journalist from Europe 1 wanted to hear the fan’s reaction to the death of his idol. On hearing the news, Erwan was solid, chained the interviews for several days. Before realizing the magnitude of the news. The man he loved so much had passed away at the age of 74, leaving thousands of fans with their grief. Four years later, he’s still knocked out. “I’m not an enlightened fan, I’m not nuts, I wasn’t on my knees in front of him. But it took me a while to realize that my life was changing. I lived serenely as long as he was there, because I was waiting for the new cake, the tour. And there, everything stopped. I saw a lot of other admirers, we talked. No one wanted to end the word. “

Deprived of his hotel that he had to close, his idol and his crazy trips on the continent, Erwan Masson could have sunk. Listening to her, he was not far from it. He resurfaced thanks to a work, which he comes to publish by Coop Breizh editions. In Johnny, my island and me, Erwan recounts the 200 concerts, the backstage evenings, the meetings with the legend and the trip to Las Vegas where five fan planes had been chartered from France. “Each plane is named after a song. Ours is called The penitentiary. The atmosphere is amazing. All social categories as well as all ages are represented: the youngest is 14 years old, the oldest is 87 years old, ”says the Molénais in his 150-page book.

Throughout his passionate life, Erwan Masson met the king of French rock on several occasions, notably at Vieilles Charrues, in Carhaix, in 2006. He sometimes called him to wish him his birthday. If he had to keep only one image, he would keep the one of the blue of his eyes. “It hit me in the heart. »Every day since the death of the one who was born Jean-Philippe Smet, the Breton listens to the album From now on. A soft disc of about thirty minutes which resonates every morning around 5:30 or 6 o’clock in a house far to the West, swept by winds and tides. In Molène, Johnny still lives. “I know he’s not dead… He’s sleeping. “

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