Cœur de pirate at AB: the runaway pop of a queer icon lands in Brussels

A major figure in Francophone pop and an outspoken voice in the queer community, Cœur de pirate stops at Ancienne Belgique on March 4, 2026 with “En cavale”, a new show blending piano confessions, pop beats and unfiltered love letters.

Since 2008, Béatrice Martin, better known as Cœur de pirate, has carved out a unique space with her luminous melancholy, finely crafted pop and ultra-intimate storytelling, becoming one of the leading international voices of French-language music. Quebec-born and splitting her life between Montreal and Europe, she has played venues across the globe and sold over a million albums, carried by songs that defined a generation, like Comme des enfants.

With her new show “En cavale”, she opens a fresh chapter: a concert designed like an emotional road movie, where we shift from heart-wrenching piano-and-voice moments to pop crescendos that make you want to scream the lyrics into the Brussels night. The staging promises a deliberate split between the classically trained musician who controls every nuance of her keyboard and the performer who’s ready to dance, laugh and break the fourth wall.

For queer audiences, Cœur de pirate’s stop at AB carries special weight. In 2016, she took up her pen to come out as queer, explaining that she refused to be afraid to love whoever she wanted and that she wanted to offer her daughter a model of love unconstrained by gender, race or religion. A few years later, her public relationship with trans singer Laura Jane Grace sparked a torrent of hate, which the artist turned into raw material for her music, notably in the track Dans l’obscurité, where she tackles transphobia and its impact on mental health head-on.

That radical honesty runs through her entire discography: messy breakups, parenthood, resilience, sexuality, anxiety… nothing is off-limits, and that is exactly what makes her such a vital ally for a whole generation of LGBTQI+ fans. Her concerts have become ephemeral safe spaces where you can cry, dance, flirt and hold hands in the dark, to pop music that embraces softness as a form of resistance.

In Brussels, it’s the legendary Ancienne Belgique that will host Cœur de pirate as she presents her new material, while revisiting the songs that soundtracked our first breakups, teenage crushes and road trips to the Belgian coast. Between piano ballads, electronic bursts and between-song confessions, expect an evening where the intimate becomes collective, and where Francophone pop proves, once again, that it can be mainstream, committed and unapologetically queer all at once.

Practical info & useful links

Bio & discography (Wikipedia).

Date: Wednesday 4 March 2026, 7 pm, Ancienne Belgique, Brussels.

Tickets & info:

Ancienne Belgique – agenda & tickets.

Live Nation Belgium – show info & ticketing.

Official Cavale Tour website – Cœur de pirate tour dates.

Artist:

Cœur de pirate official tour hub.

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