dimanche 28 septembre 2008

Stevie Wonder @ Paris Bercy Sept 28th 2008

Stevie Wonder @ Paris Bercy Sept 28th 2008

Patrice Guino , our photographer took those from the Stalls so the quality is not as good as usual, Forgive him please ...


Concert SOLD-OUT ages ago even tough, once again , prices are silly : up to 150 Euros.
The show started very slowly with Stevie playing the first song on the Harmonica, then things started getting hot as he played one of his hit but unfortunately the first part of the gig was plagued by some crap easy-listening songs. One hit out of 3 of these songs. So the first hour was interesting when he was playing a well known song otherwise it was plain boring ( well i' m exagerating a bit too much ! )

Nevertheless the band is smoking , they are ten musicians ( 1 drummer , 2 percussionnists , 2 keyboard players , 2 guitarists , 1 bassist , 2 brass players and 4 Backing vocalists including 3 stunning ( physically) black girls.) and Stevie of course centre stage behind his keyboards...who is on top form vocally , it's hard to believe his voice is still as perfect as 40 years ago, loud & clear . Physically he gain lots of weight .

We had a couple of guests , First was a guitar player (Mao Otayeck ) who played and sang a tune. Second was French Harmonica player called Frederic Yonnet who did a great duet with Stevie on "Boogie On Reggae Woman" , a real "battle" of harmonica . I've seen many "battle "of guitars but it was the first one with harmonicas , couldn't decide who won , both were great. Aisha , Stevie 's daughter ( the little girl crying at the beginning of " you are the sunshine of my life , that's her ) sang one too.
Stevie cried at the end of a song remembering his mother , that was emotional . He also played a few seconds of Edith Piaf 's "Milord" .
The second part was fantastic as Stevie played one hit after another . We were all here to hear those lovely songs, he played a lot of 'em but not all of 'em : "I wish" , "As" , Living in the city" , Higher ground" , "You are the sunshine of my life" " superstition" , " my cherie amour" , "visions" , " Don't you worry about a thing" , "Part time lover" , "free" , "Isn't she lovely", "I just called to say i love you",plus a few others ...
The only thing i could reproach to Stevie is that he's stretching out some songs a bit too much ( one lasted 15 min ) .
Stevie's supporting Obama for the elections so he mentionned it a couple of times, he did a song for his mother too who " went to heaven " a couple of years ago .
We even had a couple of minutes of Edwin Starr's " War" with the audience participation on the chorus.
Glad to see him back in Paris after all these years for an overall very good 2h40 concert.
The second part was so good that it made us forget the weak parts of the beginning.
Setlist to follow shortly...
There was an aftershow party at the Jamel Comedy Club and Stevie Wonder has played there for half an hour ( courtesy of http://www.funkhome.com/ )

Setlist :
All blues (From Miles Davis)
As if you read in my mind
Master blaster (jammin')
Did I hear you say you love me ?
All I do
Knocks me off my feet
"count us in " Jam - april in Paris ( spoken citation )
"Milord " by Edith Piaf ( a couple of lines )
The shadow of your smile ( love theme from - the Sandpiper- )
People make the world go round ( by the Stylistics )
Higher ground
Concierto de Aranjuez
Spain (from Chick Corea)
Don' you worry about a thing
Visions
Living for the city
Part time lover
Free
Carry on (Mao Otayeck on guitar and vocals )
Overjoyed
Lately
I'm gonna laugh you out of my life (Aïsha Morris lead vocals)
My cherie amour
Signed Sealed Delivered
Sir Duke
I wish
Boogie on a reggae woman (with Frédéric Yonnet on harmonica )
Isn't she lovely ?
You are the sunshine of my life
I just called to say I love you
Do I do
Superstition / Obama/ War ( edwin Starr )
As "
-2h32 min-


The ridiculously complicated Pass Sheet from Bercy

I'll put more videos here :
http://fr.youtube.com/user/rockingparis
Here's one. It's " free" :


Free daily newspaper -20 Minutes- has used my video of " you are the sunshine of my life" to illustrate Stevie Wonder's show in Paris Bercy :

http://www.20minutes.fr/article/257538/Culture-Stevie-Wonder-une-legende-a-Bercy.php

Tomorrow the 29th TV on the radio are playing a private TV show " L' album de la semaine" for Canal+ ; they will be playing a Sold-out gig at the Nouveau Casino on the 30th.

Cold War Kids are playing the Bataclan on the 29th.

Patti Smith will be in Paris for the " Nuit Blanche" ( Oct 4th )reading poetry @ Eglise de St Germain des Pres between 9 PM and 6 AM ( yes these are the right times )

samedi 27 septembre 2008

Elliott Murphy @ Mairie du 6e Paris Sept 26th 2008

Breaking News :
The Dirty Pretty Things to play the Bataclan on Nov 25th
A new Springsteen record is planned for January 2009
LED ZEPPELIN TO TOUR NEXT SUMMER ...


Elliott Murphy & Olivier Durand

M. Le Maire du 6e arrondissement introducing Elliott .

Elliott Murphy & the Normandy all star band is playing an unusual free gig in one of the reception room of the 6th district 's Paris Town Hall. The 6th district is on the famous left bank and the Town Hall just in front of the Saint Sulpice church which is famous now for being in the -DaVinci Code- and 2 min 's walk from the St Germain des Pres church. Lots of people ( around 500 ) so the reception room is full. Many fans and some posh guests from the Left Bank.
Elliott is living in Paris for many years now and he's playing quite often here .
Never been disappointed with this american songwritter his catalogue is excellent and his shows are always great .
Tonight is no exception, what can I say ? Another fucking great gig.
How is it possible that he's not selling out stadium ? It's the greatest mistery of rock !
Short set of "just " 90 min ( curfew at 10:30 pm ) usually he's on for 3 to 4 hours .

Check his myspace if you don't know him he deserves it :
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=81421514

A video here covering The Doors' " LA Woman " :
http://fr.youtube.com/user/rockingparis

vendredi 26 septembre 2008

QUEEN + Paul Rodgers @ Paris Bercy Sept 24th 2008 More Pictures ...


Pass sheet with new cd signed by Jamie , Danny & Spike ( left )
and by Paul , Brian & Roger (right ) @ the aftershow party in Bercy

More Pictures from Queen + Paul Rodgers in Paris

Tonight Elliott Murphy is playing The 6th district Town hall of Paris and it's a... free concert





jeudi 25 septembre 2008

Oasis & AC DC Breaking News...

Oasis new show for Paris is Nov 10th ( Septh 30th was postponed )
AC DC shows in Paris are Feb 25th and 27th in Bercy.

QUEEN + Paul Rodgers @ Paris Bercy Sept 24th 2008


The Whole Band
Great show by QUEEN + Paul Rodgers.

Bercy is very far from being full , there are black curtains in the back and on both sides to cover empty seats . The pit down the front is easy , lots of spaces even in the very first rows so perfect conditions down there , no pushing. Around 9000 people into this 17000 capacity arena.
I'm really not convinced by the new songs including when they are live. Starting the show with a new song is a complete mistake , first beacause not everybody knows it and second it's a "mid-tempo" song.
Roger's solo on drums ( plus the bass-drums thing ) is a little bit long and comes to early into the gig .
Nevertheless even with its weakness the show was nice , the stage's design and lightning is impressive especially the catwalk which is used very often and to great effect.
Lots of costumes changes for Paul & Brian ( see pictures ).
The band's security was a pain in the ass preventing people from taking pictures or recording. What for ?
Paul Rodgers ' voice is one of the greatest and fits perfectly with Queen's songs.
The setlist is great , so many fantastic songs ... and Paul's song were the best , how can you beat " Feel like making love" , "seagull" , " Bad company" or " all right now" ? Even Queen can't ...
Maybe this show needed so more Rocky and up-tempo songs.
Very good show indeed.

The acoustic parts

Drums solo on the catwalk

Setlist: ( from : http://www.austrianqueenfanclubvienna.at/menu.htm )
Intro (Cosmos rocks)
01 Surf´s Up … School´s Out!
02 Tie your mother down
03 Fat bottomed girls
04 Another one bites the dust
05 I want it all
06 I want to break free
07 C-lebrity
08 Seagull (Paul solo)
09 Love of my life (Brian solo)
10 '39
11 Roger electric Bass Solo incl Under Pressure/Another One Bites The Dust
12 Drum Solo
13 I'm in love with my car
14 Say it's not true
15 Bad company
16 Feel Like Making Love
17 Guitar solo
18 Bijou
19 Last horizon
20 Crazy little thing called love
21 The show must go on
22 Radio gaga
23 Bohemian rhapsody

Encores:
24 Cosmos rockin'
25 All right now
26 We will rock you
27 We are the champions
28 God save the queen

mercredi 24 septembre 2008

OASIS European shows postponed

FFUUUUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKKK !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

3 shows are postponed :

Sept 27 th : Cornwall, Sept 29th : Cologne
and ...Paris @ Bataclan Sept 30th

Divine Comedy @ Cité de la Musique Paris Sept 23rd 2008

UPDATED SEPT 24th WITH VIDEO...

Waaaooooohhhhhh !!!
Second show for Divine Comedy @ Cité de la Musique in Paris.

As i'm a lazy sod, just read the review from the first show and replace the sentence "Some of the french songs were clearly not rehearsed perfectly " with " This time the french songs were almost perfect " . LoL
He still messed up the lyrics to the Georges Brassens' song " les copains d' abord" but i think he did it on purpose for a laugh.
Yesterday's show was very good but tonight it's a "sans faute" .
Complete setlist below with " something for the weekend " added as a last encore otherwise same setlist with same guests : Vincent Delerm for 2 songs and Daphné for 2 songs including a somptuous " Initials BB feat sexy Boy "

AWRIGHT Neil with a show like this ( with the french songs ), you can tour the world.

Vincent Delerm came back for a few seconds during "Joe le taxi" playing the little girl ( Vanessa was 14 when she recorded the song ).

Patrice Guino did an effort to get even better pictures than yesterday, nice.



Here with Daphné

We met Neil after the show , he was very nice and chatty.

I asked him how he picked the songs here's a few things :

"les copains d'abord " ( Georges Brassens ) suggested by his french teacher because everyone knew it in france.
" je changerai d'avis" ( francoise Hardy ) He heard it at Café rouge @ Heathrow Airport and then used it as a walk on song for his concert .
" Joe le taxi" ( Vanessa Paradis ) it's a joke.
" L' amour est bleu" : he did a program for BBC2 and had to watch all eurovision song contests ( lucky you ;-)) and he liked the song.
"Amsterdam" ( Jacques Brel ) He had to do a song by this artist.
He wanted to do a cover of Edith Piaf but he realised it was to hard to sing so he gave up .


" Amsterdam " by Jacques Brel :


mardi 23 septembre 2008

Divine Comedy @ Cité de la Musique Paris Sept 22nd 2008



2 special shows SOLD-OUT @ La Cité de la Musique in Paris France for Divine Comedy.
Yeah Baby , only in Paris as Neil will play some french tunes only for these gigs ( tonight and tomorrow ).
No need to tell you that we reaallly love Neil Hannon and his band.

He started with Jacques Brel 's "Amsterdam" ( in fact he's from Belgium ) on guitar and then we were treated to a -best of- of his carreer with some french songs thrown in .

Here they are " Poupée de cire " ( written by Gainsbourg and sung by France Gall , eurovision winner in 196? ), "Songs that we sing" ( written by Neil for Charlotte Gainsbourg's record , music by Air ) "Les playboys " by Jacques Dutronc ( he was a good friend of Gainsbourg ) ," Anita Petterson" by Vincent Delerm ( shitty french singer of the new Nouvelle Vague ) ,"home" by Jane Birkin ( she was Gainsbourg's wife , written for her by Neil ? ) "Les copains d' abord " by provocateur & chansonnier Georges Brassens . "L' amour est bleu" by Vicky Leandros ??? ( eurovision song contest for Luxembourg in 1967 ), " Initials BB " ( written by Serge Gainsbourg for Brigitte Bardot with portions of "sexy boy" by Air ) "Je changerai" by Francoise Hardy ( wife of Jacques dutronc ) & "Joe le taxi " by Vanessa Paradis ( wife of Johnny Depp ) .

Complete setlist of Divine Comedy's gig @ Cité de la Musique below.

As usual with Neil , he has the english sens of humour and that british touch of class, Divine Comedy songs are just great and even when he's messing up lyrics completely or even when he's forgetting the lyrics to his own songs ( and has to ask the girls in the front row ) he always takes it with a laugh .
Some of the french songs were clearly not rehearsed perfectly, but it was ok

A couple of guests were here tonight first was Vincent delerm for a duet on a DC song and then was Daphné who did a great duet on " Initials BB" this song is absolutely fantastic and is one of my favourite ever, this long version with portions of Air's "sexy boy" was the highlight of the concert.

"National express" closed the concert .
GREAT GIG i'm coming back for more tomorrow .


with Vincent delerm ( right)


Goodbye and see you tomorrow night !

I will upload more French songs here :
http://fr.youtube.com/user/rockingparis

contact :
irockinparis@yahoo.fr

His fantastic duet with Daphné on " Initials BB " here :