Greetings! As some of you saw in the
Concert Tickets thread, a group of us from the Northwest of the USA had a small get together last night at a local French bistro called
La Crème Brûlée to watch Alizée (and some other French artists, but mostly Alizée) in the huge format provided by an excellent projector.
The "
virtual concert" as we called it was great! It started at 20h00 with a slide-show of French sights. It then commenced in earnest with selections from Les Enfoirés 2002, progressing from there through a series of live videos of Alizée, Jenifer, Lorie, Pascal Obisbo, Natasha St. Pier, Melissa Mars, and others. These videos continued for around 90 minutes, and then gave way to some true concert footage. Lorie offered three numbers from her concert, and Jenifer followed with four from hers. After two hours of awesome vids, the real party began. With a final announcement to the remaining crowd, advising them that we would accept no interuptions, the complete En Concert DVD was launched.
An excellent job was done by guldebrett to make sure we really got in to it, and he made sure we joined in with the crowd on Moi... Lolita, screaming along at the top of our lungs. We jumped right in on C'est Trop Tard as well, pumping our fists, and howling our approval. Come Youpidou, I found my boasts that I knew the Youpidou dance put to the test, as they made me get up and dance along, using a napkin in place of a pink towel. I won't claim it was pretty, but I did it :-D With the projection so large, it really felt as close to being there as I can imagine, without actually being there. I honestly wanted to reach out and touch her hand as she ran along the crowd in A Contre-Courant.
After that was done, we hung around for a couple more hours, at varying points dancing to eurovids on a clear part of the floor, listening to our host tell stories of France, Corsica in particular, munching on Corsican style food, and drinking some tasty wine (I don't say that lightly - I don't like wine, and I drank multiple glasses of this one). We finally wrapped up around 02h00, 6 hours after the concert began, and over 7 hours after some of us started arriving. Quite honestly, it was the most fun I've had in months, and I'm all the more stoked for Alizée's next album, and the subsequent TV spots and hoped-for tour.
In attendance from Alizée America were c-dawg777, CFHollister, guldebrett (who organized things for us - thanks!), rwd716 (who drove 7 hours from Idaho to join us), and myself. Several of us took pictures, and having asked the subjects' permission, I'm posting eight of the ones I took. I'm sure more will be added shortly by the others!
c-dawg777:
CFHollister:
rwd716 (with some other concert attendees in the background):
Myself:
Guldebrett was kind enough to bring along an
autographed picture of Alizée, as well as a
poster, to give away in a mini-contest for we Alizéeans. To win, we had to guess as close as possible to the correct number of wine corks that were in a large ornamental tub on the stage. The winner was
c-dawg, and for his accurate guessing, he got the beautiful photo he's holding here:
I managed to get second place, and was rewarded with a this lovely 36x24 inch
poster:
I would be remiss if I didn't also thank our wonderful hosts! The owner and chef of the Bistro is
Monsieur Bertrand, a charming Frenchman who makes one heck of a good meal, and whose face lights up when Alizée is mentioned (Notice the wall behind c-dawg in his picture above with the autographed photo. We didn't bring those things in for last night, that's how the place really is!). Our hostess was
Madame Dominique, who is very attentive, and always ready to help with our French pronunciation (she teaches both Spanish and French as a tutor).
Monsieur Bertrand (note the 8x10 on the cabinet behind him):
Madame Dominique (along with two of Monsieur Bertrand's children):
