Review by David B,
UK
© David B- July 11, 2000
Lara in Lille, France
I’ve just arrived back home in England after having
seen last night’s tremendous concert of Lara in
Lille. A truly amazing show!!!
I arrived at the Zénith Arena about an hour before the
start time of the show. I was expecting to see a large
advertising display for Lara outside the building –
but there was nothing! Although there was a huge yellow
hoarding on the building facing oncoming traffic on the
main city ring-road it was completely blank!!! There was
just a very small poster by the entrance to the arena
away from the road. So it wasn’t surprising that
yesterday’s local paper said that seats were still
available!
The first thing I did when I entered the place was to
look at the merchandising table. There were posters, key-rings,
postcards and t-shirts with the photo of Lara from the
cover of the American album, but little else and
certainly no tour-book which was a little disappointing
for me!
So I went inside the arena itself to look for my floor
seat in row C, obviously the third row, or so I thought,
but as I walked towards the front I discovered that there
were NO rows A & B!!! OMG! I WAS IN THE FRONT ROW!
INCREDIBLE!! However I have to admit I wasn’t quite
in the centre, I was slightly to the left near the piano
– but it was still a great seat!!!
The wait for Lara to appear seemed endless! Whilst I was
waiting I looked around and saw that the arena wasn’t
quite full – there were about 300 empty seats in the
highest and furthest parts of the tiered seating at the
back, but I would still estimate the place to be about 90%
full.
Eventually the lights dimmed, the band came on stage and
we could hear but not see at first Lara sing in ‘a
capella’ style without music the opening lines of
“Je t’aime” – but very soon she
appeared at the back of the stage and walked forward as
the band struck up with the music. She was wearing an
orange, almost gold-coloured low-cut shirt with black
trousers, she looked superb as well as sounding great!!!
What a start!!!
The second song was “J’ai zappé”. Lara
used the full length of the stage running from left to
right and coming to the front by the piano where she was
no more than six feet away from me!!! What a view!!!!!
The next song was “La différence” which Lara
performed with a lot of emotion, almost spitting out the
word ‘foutent’ in each chorus. She then
followed it with the first two English songs of the
evening, “I Am Who I Am” and “Givin’
Up On You”.
Then Lara gave what for me was the performance of the
evening with “Si tu m’aimes” (the second
verse of which she performed in English). In my opinion
she put more power and emotion in to this song than any
other. A very, very strong performance with a tremendous
ending!
After that she introduced on stage a young French singer
called Sebastien Lorca. He is to play the male lead in
the forthcoming French musical entitled “Les mille
et une vies d’Ali Baba” (“The 1001 lives
of Ali Baba”). He and Lara performed a duet of
“Evidemment”, a classic French slow song
written by the late Michel Berger and originally sung by
his wife France Gall. Having heard that Sebastien
appeared with Lara in Brussels I was hoping he would come
to Lille and I was not disappointed, their duet was great.
Another highlight of the evening!
The next song, “Humana”, was performed by Lara
with fires burning all around the stage! She then
followed that with a very powerful rendition of “Adagio”
which for me was her best English-language performance of
the night.
After the following song, “Till I Get Over You”,
Lara slowed the tempo and performed “Je t’appartiens”
standing by the piano – and of course right where I
was sitting! For a few minutes as she sang this song I
imagined that there were just three people present in the
arena – Lara, myself and the pianist! Magic!!!!!
During the next song, “Part of Me”, the
audience at the back started to surge forward along the
aisles, first on the right and then on the left where I
was. The security staff tried to stop them but they didn’t
really try very hard and just let the crowd come forward
and along the front of the stage. Not really a problem
for me as I’m quite tall and by standing up I still
had a clear view of the stage but it wasn’t fair on
those people behind me in the floor seating who had their
view blocked somewhat. I thought Lara might have asked
them to sit down but she didn’t!
Anyway back to the show and after a very loud performance
of the old Johnny Hallyday hit song “Que je t’aime”
(a little too loud for me!) followed by an almost equally
energetic “Alleluia” Lara then sang a rather
quieter “Yeliel (My Angel)”. Interestingly she
didn’t actually sing the quiet beginning of “Yeliel”
although the same backing track from the album was played.
I’m sure it is her voice on it, or maybe not?
Then came “You Are My Heart” which Lara
performed as a sort of duet with her guitarist!
Incidentally one of many things I liked about the show
was that Lara involved her band and backing singers quite
a lot during the evening, they each performed at least
part of a song with her.
The next song was “Je suis malade” which Lara
performed staggering around the stage in feigned illness!
That was followed by “I Will Love Again” to
which I’d been looking forward all night but I’m
sorry to say that if one song disappointed me then it was
this one. By now Lara seemed to me to be a little tired (not
surprising really after having performed flat out for
nearly two hours!) and I don’t think she gave as
much to the performance of this song as in her TV
broadcasts. However I noticed she seemed to be having a
little difficulty hearing the music, she often held her
hand over her earpiece, although by now the audience was
screaming very loudly so that might not have helped her
hear the band! But there were great special effects for
this song with fireworks at the back of the stage and
pieces of silver foil raining down from the ceiling onto
the audience!
Lara then disappeared for a couple of minutes and
reappeared to perform the first encore which was “Tout”.
She asked the audience to sing along, although in the
event they rather shouted along! It was definitely
impossible to hear Lara now! At the end she and the band
took a bow and had to dodge the many flowers and cuddly
toys being thrown onto the stage by the crowd!
After another short disappearance Lara then returned for
the second encore, not “Caruso” as in previous
concerts but “Pas sans moi”. Although I was
disappointed not to hear her perform something in Italian,
in my opinion this was a still good song to choose with
which to end the show as it was quieter and the audience
didn’t join in or scream so much, therefore I had a
final chance to be able to hear Lara’s voice! After
this song she sadly took her final leave for the evening!
For most of the two-hour concert Lara was so powerful!
This morning’s local newspaper in Lille in reviewing
the show called her ‘the volcanic one’ and it’s
a good name for her! She did a great job of motivating
the audience although maybe at times I would have liked
things to be a little calmer and quieter! However the
only real complaint I had about my fellow concert-goers
is that some of them would not shut up whilst Lara was
speaking between songs, so it was sometimes difficult for
me to understand what she was saying especially as my
French is not as strong as it could be.
But the whole show was an incredible, unique experience
for me and I would love to be able to see Lara perform
again one day. Hopefully that will be in London!
TRADUIRE
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