I didn’t think I’d get any usable footage with my camera so I didn’t try hard. And no I didn’t buy the actual mini-vibrator! I don’t want anyone to think of me as a cheap date.
Many of my French friends call Mylène Farmer “La Madonna française” or Madonna, “Le Mylène américaine.” I’m not sure they are completely comparable. However they’ve survived other the years producing pop music on a cyclic marketing strategy of controversy.
I’d say more thought goes into Mylène’s lyrics. The words all have double entendres where her songs often tell a different story than the surface upbeat melody. Take C’est une belle jounrée. This tune is about suicide. Or, Pourvu qu’elles soient douce, as my Brussels friends describes it, where Mylène “fait un appel à la sodomie.” I think there’s enough words in there for you to figure that one out.
The venue: Le Stade de France, a stadium built out of the French’s obsessive love of concrete and modern design use of shiny steel way outside of the périphique highway that runs around the city limits. It serves as kind of a Berlin wall to the depressing and oppressive suburbs of yet more tall concrete buildings.
My friends had driven down from Brussels that morning with enough time to grab a bite to eat on the Champs Elysées and off we went armed with a GPS, and not much else.
Upon arrival I knew this was an “event,” the place was electric. For France, this was something big, the Stade was sold out two nights in a row @ 80,000 tickets.
I quickly noticed that demographics of her audience, forgetting Mylène has been around since the same time Madonna arrived on the scene. The mix was older, gay, straight, and some quite young.
Something else I noted was that these were die-hard fans. This was their idol, and they worshipped her. The chanting for Mylène was purposely whipped up as the image of the huge scull was slowly morphing into various configurations.
Mylène..clap clap clap…Mylène ..clap clap clap…Mylène began to get louder and louder.
These people were devoted to her. Now I haven’t been to a Madonna concert, or any other big concert here, so it could be the same.
The opening began with me realizing exactly how miniscule she was even though the stage didn’t seem that far away. The upside was that the show took the entire side of the Stade de France, and there would be no way to take it all in up close.
Coming out, Mylène and her dancers appeared in body outfits to look as if they were part of an anatomy diagram of all the muscles, veins and arteries stripped of all skin.
Jean-Paul Gautier designed outfits were stunning and classical haute couture à la française – well most of the outfits.
The green laser lights gathered as we were in a tunnel where smoke covered the sides of the walls over the catwalk where suddenly there appeared piano. It was time for the ballads, and the French love their fluffy ballads.
The night was fun, and for me original. I’m not sure if I’d catch her on every tour if I lived in France, but for this one night, it was an experience I knew I wouldn’t have again.
M list of seeing performers in other cities is growing. It is 50/50 glamour. I have to work on raising that. Twice I’ve had to make the trek to Orillia (technically out of town) and Kathy Griffin in New York, and Mylène in Paris.
Being a huge fan of Bette Midler as a live act, I’m working on my friend Barry to think about a quick winter get away to Las Vega to catch her out there.
