In the wake of his latest album, the very good Tirer la nuit sur lesétoiles, released last spring, Étienne Daho embarked on a tour of very large venues at the start of the school year. As the culmination of an epic journey that will take him on the road for a good part of next year – with around ten summer festivals to boot – the singer will perform for the first time at the Accor Arena next December 22.
A big step for this regular at the Olympia, a Parisian venue in which he has performed regularly since the coronation of the year 1986, the start of what was to be called Dahomania. It was in Lille, as part of the Zénith, on Tuesday December 5, that we were able to discover the very spectacular show developed over four months by the artist and his teams. From the outset, we are impressed by the very wide opening of the stage. The warmth of the Lille crowd – one of the best in France – made Étienne Daho’s entry onto the track a lively and colorful celebration. Surrounded by eight musicians, whom he presents from the start of the show – Jean-Louis Piérot, keyboards and guitar, François Poggio, guitar, Colin Russeil, drums, Marcello Giuliani, bass, as well as a string quartet – Daho shines from the first notes of The Invitation, a title entirely appropriate. Behind him, and all around the musicians, an extravagant device made up of screens and figures adjusted by the French from Mathematic Studio with great taste. Powerful neon lights illuminate the letters D.A.H.O Elvis style in Las Vegas. In a very chic sequined jacket, his silhouette intact, the singer doesn’t need to go overboard to make the room succumb.
With this regulated and meticulous show, Étienne Daho offers a gripping retrospective of a faultless career that spans the last four decades. All the albums are cited, except Mythomane, from 1981, and Blitz, from 2017. None of the numerous hits that have marked this beautiful journey are missing. The audience is celebrating, as are the musicians, who hide behind elegant and never noisy arrangements. Between intimate rooms and clubbing temptations, Daho doesn’t choose, and that’s a good thing.
Of course, the presence of the strings enhances the power of the torch songs which are part of the singer’s repertoire. On Suddenly, a piece from the album Eden, Daho croons with great ease. Du Phare, one of the best songs from the last album, the star says that she was born in the Breton sea spray. The adopted Rennais never forgets to mention the region where he started his career. He never fails to cite his inspirations: the couples Elli Medeiros/Jacno, Françoise Hardy/Jacques Dutronc, and Jane Birkin/Serge Gainsbourg. “One day, Serge invited me to his house on rue de Verneuil. I never got out of it,” he says before performing his Comme un boomerang, which he resurrected in 2001 with the late Dani.
Also read: Étienne Daho: permanent inspiration
But the strength of the artist is to never give in to nostalgia, but to continue moving forward. Not stingy with anecdotes, he recounts the genesis of certain classics such as Des Heures Indoues, the last piece recorded on the album Pour nos vies martiennes. He also recounts the presence of Jeanne Moreau, who danced throughout one of his concerts before introducing herself to him in the dressing rooms, the day when he suggested that he record with her Le Condamné à mort by Jean Genet set in music by Hélène Martin. Today he resumes Sur mon coup, an extract from a demanding collaboration which gave him a new foundation in 2010, and allowed the writing of his best album, The Songs of Innocence Recovered, released in 2013, of which he performs The Walking Man. “One of my favorites, composed with Jean-Louis Pierot in fragments, as if it wrote itself,” he says.
The sequence Duel au soleil, En surface (written and composed by Dominique A) and Tombé pour la France constitutes one of the most beautiful sequences of the evening, in an alternation between softness and pulsations. Bleu comme toi is played very raw rock, The first day (of the rest of your life) very English pop and Weekend in Rome a little too boom boom, but Daho shows the amplitude of her register with beautiful vocal mastery. Vanessa Paradis, present in the room, does not join him for their duet Tirer la nuit sur lesétoiles but is present vocally and physically in the sound system and on the screens. From start to finish, the scenography is breathtaking. After an encore and a change of outfit, Étienne Daho, very touched by the warmth of the welcome, is already getting ready for the next stage of this memorable tour.
