A pint of beer to the person who manages to guess how many "adorable"s were in the original post.
ThursdayFriday, 00.31:
So.
The concert. Nah, the Concert.
My eyes are killing me and my head is in a lot of pain right now, not to mention I could drop asleep, I'm so tired, but I won't be able to sleep soundly if I don't jot down my impressions before tomorrow morning.
It was...a mix of pure brilliance and petty annoyances. Jamie was just as amazing as I expected him to be. He was so cute and so full of energy and so much like a child having the time of his life that it made me ache to get to know him. The audience, on the other hand, could have been about two thousand times better and still not worthy of a mention in the Guinness book.
(talking about Guinness, you can tell Jamie's a Londonner. He didn't drink water between songs, he sipped beer. ♥)
I mean, this was Jamie Cullum. The entire hall should have been on their feet and dancing and singing for the entire concert. Instead, even the people standing in front of the stage failed to so much as bob their heads most of the time.
Thankfully, by the end of the night, Jamie had managed to infuse some life into those poor creatures and the concert did end up with the entire audience standing and clapping and dancing and screaming...and waving their lighted cellphones around, as instructed by Jamie as a collective farewell gesture. It was also impressive to see the difference between the first act's attempt at getting us to sing and Jamie's attempt, where the room immediately swelled with a perfect rendition of what he had just sung. ♥
Click to see video!
I think the main problem was that there might have been a lot of people who went to see this as they would have gone to see any other Jazz concert, as something you sit down to listen to, not as something you jump around to. On the other hand, there were even more "old" people at the Simon&Garfunkel concert and this didn't stop the entire Bercy stadium from standing up and stamping for most of the concert.
On the other hand, I say that, but the couple next to me were my age and even at the end, when everybody stood up to dance the samba, it took them almost the entire song to finally get to their feet. I just don't understand it. They loved Jamie, that much was clear, but they couldn't just let the rhythm sweep them off their feet? If it had been up to me we'd have turned the wide standing area into a dance floor. *shakes head*
I got there around 17.30, and there were already about thirty of forty people queuing patiently outside. It was all fine and good at first, however, around 18.30, when night fell, it started getting so cold you could see people huddling closer together to try and keep warm. Maybe that's why they let us in as soon as they did (19.15).
I'd read all about how you weren't allowed to have cameras and how they would really check your bag and your pockets, so I didn't have much hope of being able to take my camera inside. However, the girl only patted my pocket, glanced into my bag, and told me that she'd have to take the cap of my water bottle away "because a full bottle can be a weapon".
Yeah, right. I'm sure that has nothing to do with the fact that you're selling bottles of soda inside the showroom, right?
But this distracted her and she didn't even touch the packet of M&Ms that I'd placed on top of my camera to conceal it. My neighbours in the room also had been able to take theirs, actually I think everybody was allowed to take them in; I definitely saw a girl with her camera worn around her neck. So thank you Jamie for not being anal like most stars today.
The first part was...amazing. I can't remember their name (something like Kezlopi) but I very nearly bought their CD (however, it was 15 euros and I was already buying worth 40 euros of stuff, so...), they just had so much energy and spark, the singer was like a carbon-copy of Jamie. The audience failed to respond much apart from clapping and shouting at the end of every song, which sparked my dislike of them all. The singer still managed to make us sing a little, though, and I was really impressed with him for even trying.
Moreover, he soon took out a little black book where he had scribbled some French sentences, which was the cutest thing ever.
Well, that is, until Jamie himself came on stage and haltingly declared, after the first song, "Ce soir....ce soir je parle français!". ♥
He was adorable. He kept starting in French and finishing in English and asking the audience (and his musicians) for help when he couldn't remember a word, and saying "tu" instead of "vous" when adressing us. And in all honesty, his French was far from bad!
Click to see video!
I found it funny that he should say that he'd never thought he could fill up such a place as this, as I had been surprised at how goddamn small that showroom was. What's worse, for the longest time it seemed as if the room would remain half empty. We were sitting there for almost an hour before the concert started, and the seats wouldn't get filled up, and the crowd in front of the stage wasn't a crowd but a gathering. Then, without me noticing, the room sneakily filled up during the very last ten minutes, until it was packed from floor to ceiling, to my utter relief. I don't understand how people can just go to a concert less than five minutes early, as if it was just some random night at the movies, but maybe it's because it was only my second concert ever. I was glad I'd gotten there early, though. I was sitting on the fourth row, right in the middle. If my zoom had been a little more performant, it would have been Heaven, but even so I got better pictures than I would have expected.
He started the concert wearing a black jacket and a tie. The jacket came off right after the first song. The tie soon followed. Then he took off his white shirt, and something else he had underneath. We all started hoping he might end up naked at the end of the night.
At one point my camera told me that the memory card was full, which wasn't surprising at all considering the amount of old pictures I've stocked in there, so I spent the next song frantically deleting the pictures from Emmanuel's wedding (or rather, the trip around it) that I had been safe-keeping there for two months, so that I could take more pictures and movies.
The only thing I regret is that between taking pictures and writing the set list down, it sometimes felt like I wasn't really in the concert, but I wouldn't have wanted not to do either, so I'll just have to live with it. Next time Jamie comes to France, though, I think I'll opt to stand up in front of the stage, get to see him up close (and get better pictures!).
Here's the set list:
Photograph I wouldn't have thought he'd start with that song. The use of the white screen was great, though. They'd created videos for most of the songs, and this one had Gettyimages glimpses of the story he was telling, which, as you'll imagine, made me very happy as it's exactly the kind of thing I like to create.
Get your way
Catch the sun
What a difference a day made There really is some cosmic joke going on when you get a bout of the worst coughing ever during the only slow, quiet song of the evening. I mean, I don't know, how is it possible that this always happens?? I thought I would die from shame and from pain as tears streamed down my face from trying to keep the coughing in so badly, it was mortifying. And extremely annoying, since I only had another real bout of coughing during the entire evening and it managed to fall on another rather quiet moment.
Prendre ta douleur I couldn't believe it when he started singing it. I wouldn't even have thought he'd know that song! But he did it justice, especially considering I actually hate that song with the passion of a thousand fiery suns. In his mouth, though, with his madly banging on his piano ("I bought this piano here", he
pointed out before taking out two drumsticks and hammering it) and his faint English accent, it was perfect.
Click to see video!
Sexyback That sent the audience into peals of laughter. He mixed it up with some other new songs that I didn't know.
Frontin' I've always loved that cover, and it was just as good here as the CD's live version.
20sth I would have expected the crowd to erupt in cheers and mad clapping for this song. They didn't. I glared. And squeed silently.
??? (I'd written These are the days, but that was the next one. I can't for the life of me remember what it was)
These are the days Once again, the little animation playing on the screen was so good I had to force myself to stare at Jamie instead.
Mind Trick
Wind cries Mary (or rather "Jamie", as he corrected after the audience cried out "Mary". Later on during the song, as he was vocalizing on his own name, he singsonged, "In the United States that's a girl's name...", waving a certain middle finger in the air as he said so)
"Love is a verb"?
But for now
Menteur Menteur. I should have recorded that one but I knew I didn't have enough free space. He said he'd written a song called Liar Liar a year ago and some French chick called Emily had helped him translate it. It's a girl in the audience who asked for it when he picked up his guitar and he hesitated and said "Are you sure? I haven't played this in a year..." then went to fetch the lyrics-sheet. He sang it half in English and half in French; the translation could have been better but it was adorable to hear him say "Je suis un menteur...comme toi", and see him stumble upon the hardest words.
London skies. "Crappy weather is the reason we [the English and the French] have a sense of humour. Gives us a little humility. We spiced it up for you, though; we just went to Rio and we're going to add some samba to the song. So when we do it, you must all dance like [wriggles all over the place], like Beyoncee. And if you're a girl and there's a man next to you, you must do this [pretends to rub his arse off against somebody's middle]."
Kick out of you
"If only I had a brain." "This next song...is for President Bush." We all booed, on principle. The lights dimmed, and Jamie started a surprisingly mellow melody on the piano. I expected something like "The Asshole song", but he started singing and it seemed to be a regular love song. I kept waiting for the catch, and then he whispered: "If only I had...a brain."
My love for Jamie officially knows no bound whatsoever from now on.
High and Dry The perfect way to end the set, if you ask me. I adore that cover.
Then came the "encores" (which was actually one encore but he played two songs and erupted into a drumming solo using the last shreds of his energy, such an unselfish boy)
All at sea
I could have danced all night. I've always hated his version of the song, but there, with everyone clapping the rhythm and him jumping around on stage, it was so utterly different from the movie version that it became just as good. It evolved into a drumming, "bap-bap-bap"ing solo, a perfect end to a perfect set.
The concert (without counting the opening act), lasted precisely from 9pm to 11.20pm. More than two hours of Jamie giving us his full, without a single second of rest (even his slow songs generally end up with him jumping around or hammering on his piano). I don't even know how he managed it without crumbling to pieces.
We'd all seen how exhausted he was so when he got out for the second time we didn't even try to get him to come back again, and the lights were turned back on, and, to my greatest pleasure, "Get your way" came on through the speakers. I've always hated it how, at the end of movies, the soundsystem of the theater comes back on and most of the time the song playing has nothing to do with the atmosphere of the movie you've just seen, and it wipes the end credits' song from your brain and leaves you with stupid techno music instead. I'm glad they're not that stupid when it comes to concerts. <3
I had gotten a glimpse of the gift shop when I'd entered the room and I didn't think I'd find anything cool to buy, but as I made my way to one of the booth I spotted the cutest t-shirt ever. They'd thought of us girls!! *squees* So of course I bought it, along with the tote bag. I had to wait ten minutes to be able to actually pay for it, because the guy was having troubles with his card-machine, and I was surprised at how many people around me were buying Jamie's records. I mean, hello, you just came to his concert without knowing his music by heart?? That just baffles me. Most people were also buying the first act's CD, though, which pleased me muchly although I wanted to ask them why in hell they hadn't been more enthusiastic back when the band was playing if they thought they were good.
At the very end, after the encore song, when we all knew when he left this time it'd be for good because he was just completely worn out (and no wonder!), he climbed on his piano for the second time that evening. I knew what was coming and held up my camera, forcing it to focus properly and praying that it would actually snap the picture when I asked it to, instead of fucking up and freezing like last time. Jamie bent his legs, I pressed the button, the flash burst into light...
The screen shut down, telling me that the memory card was full once more.
I checked the last picture taken. Jamie, in mid-flight.
I smiled and put the camera back in my pocket for the night.
So.
The concert. Nah, the Concert.
My eyes are killing me and my head is in a lot of pain right now, not to mention I could drop asleep, I'm so tired, but I won't be able to sleep soundly if I don't jot down my impressions before tomorrow morning.
It was...a mix of pure brilliance and petty annoyances. Jamie was just as amazing as I expected him to be. He was so cute and so full of energy and so much like a child having the time of his life that it made me ache to get to know him. The audience, on the other hand, could have been about two thousand times better and still not worthy of a mention in the Guinness book.
(talking about Guinness, you can tell Jamie's a Londonner. He didn't drink water between songs, he sipped beer. ♥)
I mean, this was Jamie Cullum. The entire hall should have been on their feet and dancing and singing for the entire concert. Instead, even the people standing in front of the stage failed to so much as bob their heads most of the time.
Thankfully, by the end of the night, Jamie had managed to infuse some life into those poor creatures and the concert did end up with the entire audience standing and clapping and dancing and screaming...and waving their lighted cellphones around, as instructed by Jamie as a collective farewell gesture. It was also impressive to see the difference between the first act's attempt at getting us to sing and Jamie's attempt, where the room immediately swelled with a perfect rendition of what he had just sung. ♥
Click to see video!
I think the main problem was that there might have been a lot of people who went to see this as they would have gone to see any other Jazz concert, as something you sit down to listen to, not as something you jump around to. On the other hand, there were even more "old" people at the Simon&Garfunkel concert and this didn't stop the entire Bercy stadium from standing up and stamping for most of the concert.
On the other hand, I say that, but the couple next to me were my age and even at the end, when everybody stood up to dance the samba, it took them almost the entire song to finally get to their feet. I just don't understand it. They loved Jamie, that much was clear, but they couldn't just let the rhythm sweep them off their feet? If it had been up to me we'd have turned the wide standing area into a dance floor. *shakes head*
I got there around 17.30, and there were already about thirty of forty people queuing patiently outside. It was all fine and good at first, however, around 18.30, when night fell, it started getting so cold you could see people huddling closer together to try and keep warm. Maybe that's why they let us in as soon as they did (19.15).
I'd read all about how you weren't allowed to have cameras and how they would really check your bag and your pockets, so I didn't have much hope of being able to take my camera inside. However, the girl only patted my pocket, glanced into my bag, and told me that she'd have to take the cap of my water bottle away "because a full bottle can be a weapon".
Yeah, right. I'm sure that has nothing to do with the fact that you're selling bottles of soda inside the showroom, right?
But this distracted her and she didn't even touch the packet of M&Ms that I'd placed on top of my camera to conceal it. My neighbours in the room also had been able to take theirs, actually I think everybody was allowed to take them in; I definitely saw a girl with her camera worn around her neck. So thank you Jamie for not being anal like most stars today.
The first part was...amazing. I can't remember their name (something like Kezlopi) but I very nearly bought their CD (however, it was 15 euros and I was already buying worth 40 euros of stuff, so...), they just had so much energy and spark, the singer was like a carbon-copy of Jamie. The audience failed to respond much apart from clapping and shouting at the end of every song, which sparked my dislike of them all. The singer still managed to make us sing a little, though, and I was really impressed with him for even trying.
Moreover, he soon took out a little black book where he had scribbled some French sentences, which was the cutest thing ever.
Well, that is, until Jamie himself came on stage and haltingly declared, after the first song, "Ce soir....ce soir je parle français!". ♥
He was adorable. He kept starting in French and finishing in English and asking the audience (and his musicians) for help when he couldn't remember a word, and saying "tu" instead of "vous" when adressing us. And in all honesty, his French was far from bad!
Click to see video!
I found it funny that he should say that he'd never thought he could fill up such a place as this, as I had been surprised at how goddamn small that showroom was. What's worse, for the longest time it seemed as if the room would remain half empty. We were sitting there for almost an hour before the concert started, and the seats wouldn't get filled up, and the crowd in front of the stage wasn't a crowd but a gathering. Then, without me noticing, the room sneakily filled up during the very last ten minutes, until it was packed from floor to ceiling, to my utter relief. I don't understand how people can just go to a concert less than five minutes early, as if it was just some random night at the movies, but maybe it's because it was only my second concert ever. I was glad I'd gotten there early, though. I was sitting on the fourth row, right in the middle. If my zoom had been a little more performant, it would have been Heaven, but even so I got better pictures than I would have expected.
He started the concert wearing a black jacket and a tie. The jacket came off right after the first song. The tie soon followed. Then he took off his white shirt, and something else he had underneath. We all started hoping he might end up naked at the end of the night.
At one point my camera told me that the memory card was full, which wasn't surprising at all considering the amount of old pictures I've stocked in there, so I spent the next song frantically deleting the pictures from Emmanuel's wedding (or rather, the trip around it) that I had been safe-keeping there for two months, so that I could take more pictures and movies.
The only thing I regret is that between taking pictures and writing the set list down, it sometimes felt like I wasn't really in the concert, but I wouldn't have wanted not to do either, so I'll just have to live with it. Next time Jamie comes to France, though, I think I'll opt to stand up in front of the stage, get to see him up close (and get better pictures!).
Here's the set list:
Photograph I wouldn't have thought he'd start with that song. The use of the white screen was great, though. They'd created videos for most of the songs, and this one had Gettyimages glimpses of the story he was telling, which, as you'll imagine, made me very happy as it's exactly the kind of thing I like to create.
Get your way
Catch the sun
What a difference a day made There really is some cosmic joke going on when you get a bout of the worst coughing ever during the only slow, quiet song of the evening. I mean, I don't know, how is it possible that this always happens?? I thought I would die from shame and from pain as tears streamed down my face from trying to keep the coughing in so badly, it was mortifying. And extremely annoying, since I only had another real bout of coughing during the entire evening and it managed to fall on another rather quiet moment.
Prendre ta douleur I couldn't believe it when he started singing it. I wouldn't even have thought he'd know that song! But he did it justice, especially considering I actually hate that song with the passion of a thousand fiery suns. In his mouth, though, with his madly banging on his piano ("I bought this piano here", he
pointed out before taking out two drumsticks and hammering it) and his faint English accent, it was perfect.
Click to see video!
Sexyback That sent the audience into peals of laughter. He mixed it up with some other new songs that I didn't know.
Frontin' I've always loved that cover, and it was just as good here as the CD's live version.
20sth I would have expected the crowd to erupt in cheers and mad clapping for this song. They didn't. I glared. And squeed silently.
??? (I'd written These are the days, but that was the next one. I can't for the life of me remember what it was)
These are the days Once again, the little animation playing on the screen was so good I had to force myself to stare at Jamie instead.
Mind Trick
Wind cries Mary (or rather "Jamie", as he corrected after the audience cried out "Mary". Later on during the song, as he was vocalizing on his own name, he singsonged, "In the United States that's a girl's name...", waving a certain middle finger in the air as he said so)
"Love is a verb"?
But for now
Menteur Menteur. I should have recorded that one but I knew I didn't have enough free space. He said he'd written a song called Liar Liar a year ago and some French chick called Emily had helped him translate it. It's a girl in the audience who asked for it when he picked up his guitar and he hesitated and said "Are you sure? I haven't played this in a year..." then went to fetch the lyrics-sheet. He sang it half in English and half in French; the translation could have been better but it was adorable to hear him say "Je suis un menteur...comme toi", and see him stumble upon the hardest words.
London skies. "Crappy weather is the reason we [the English and the French] have a sense of humour. Gives us a little humility. We spiced it up for you, though; we just went to Rio and we're going to add some samba to the song. So when we do it, you must all dance like [wriggles all over the place], like Beyoncee. And if you're a girl and there's a man next to you, you must do this [pretends to rub his arse off against somebody's middle]."
Kick out of you
"If only I had a brain." "This next song...is for President Bush." We all booed, on principle. The lights dimmed, and Jamie started a surprisingly mellow melody on the piano. I expected something like "The Asshole song", but he started singing and it seemed to be a regular love song. I kept waiting for the catch, and then he whispered: "If only I had...a brain."
My love for Jamie officially knows no bound whatsoever from now on.
High and Dry The perfect way to end the set, if you ask me. I adore that cover.
Then came the "encores" (which was actually one encore but he played two songs and erupted into a drumming solo using the last shreds of his energy, such an unselfish boy)
All at sea
I could have danced all night. I've always hated his version of the song, but there, with everyone clapping the rhythm and him jumping around on stage, it was so utterly different from the movie version that it became just as good. It evolved into a drumming, "bap-bap-bap"ing solo, a perfect end to a perfect set.
The concert (without counting the opening act), lasted precisely from 9pm to 11.20pm. More than two hours of Jamie giving us his full, without a single second of rest (even his slow songs generally end up with him jumping around or hammering on his piano). I don't even know how he managed it without crumbling to pieces.
We'd all seen how exhausted he was so when he got out for the second time we didn't even try to get him to come back again, and the lights were turned back on, and, to my greatest pleasure, "Get your way" came on through the speakers. I've always hated it how, at the end of movies, the soundsystem of the theater comes back on and most of the time the song playing has nothing to do with the atmosphere of the movie you've just seen, and it wipes the end credits' song from your brain and leaves you with stupid techno music instead. I'm glad they're not that stupid when it comes to concerts. <3
I had gotten a glimpse of the gift shop when I'd entered the room and I didn't think I'd find anything cool to buy, but as I made my way to one of the booth I spotted the cutest t-shirt ever. They'd thought of us girls!! *squees* So of course I bought it, along with the tote bag. I had to wait ten minutes to be able to actually pay for it, because the guy was having troubles with his card-machine, and I was surprised at how many people around me were buying Jamie's records. I mean, hello, you just came to his concert without knowing his music by heart?? That just baffles me. Most people were also buying the first act's CD, though, which pleased me muchly although I wanted to ask them why in hell they hadn't been more enthusiastic back when the band was playing if they thought they were good.
At the very end, after the encore song, when we all knew when he left this time it'd be for good because he was just completely worn out (and no wonder!), he climbed on his piano for the second time that evening. I knew what was coming and held up my camera, forcing it to focus properly and praying that it would actually snap the picture when I asked it to, instead of fucking up and freezing like last time. Jamie bent his legs, I pressed the button, the flash burst into light...
The screen shut down, telling me that the memory card was full once more.
I checked the last picture taken. Jamie, in mid-flight.
I smiled and put the camera back in my pocket for the night.