"Can you put Arizona behind me?"
»Jean-Louis Aubert did not cross the Atlantic.
He didn't even have to pass the ring road.
We find him at Porte de Montreuil, in Paris (20th century), in the premises of Adrenaline Studio, the company with which he created the show of his last two solo tours, where he is multiplied in holograms.
This time, he sings and plays the guitar while walking in an American desert, one of the sets of the live "Stream In The Night" which he will give this Monday evening for his 66th birthday.
Between rehearsals and adjustments, the musician looks back on his painful but promising year.
Why treat yourself to a livestream for your birthday?
JEAN-LOUIS AUBERT.
Ah, but it's my greatest gift, a huge video game!
I'm nervous and under pressure.
There are so many things to synchronize, dimensions to take into account.
I have been coming here every day for a month.
I feel guilty about making him pay 19.50 euros when I have shared all my lives for free for a year, but this one is very expensive.
Even if we attract people, the operation will be loss-making.
It does not matter, we are creative, we use the handicaps of this pandemic to learn and move forward.
This technology will perhaps one day make it possible to avoid taking three planes to go and make a clip.
But do livestreams have a future?
Yes, if we offer different shows.
I don't like concerts that are reproduced and filmed without an audience.
In another genre, that of Billie Eilish, of which I am a fan, was spectacular, but you could hardly see her in her virtual sets.
I preferred that of Nick Cave alone on the piano.
We must not lose tenderness and closeness.
I'd do something like him at the Bataclan.
When the first confinement fell, you were the first to do a live in your home.
You still do.
Why ?
I started because my Zénith tour had come to an end.
I was always in the energy, the fight, I refused my loneliness at home.
I went on the Internet, I put my smartphone in front of me and I realized a fantasy by becoming a cyber-troubadour.
People's feedback is incredible: "You are on my Formica table at mealtime and you set the pace for my days."
A few months after his operation, Jean-Louis Aubert will celebrate his 66th birthday with this streaming concert.
LP / Olivier Lejeune
But you had health problems.
What happened ?
I had breathing problems and thought I had the Covid.
However, my doctor discovered in me a birth defect: my aortic valve only had a small hole.
I could do like Joe Strummer or Elvis Presley, fall apart at any time.
I was the first to be surprised: “But at the Stade de France, with the Insus, I was running in all directions!
For singers and athletes alike, who breathe a lot, it is difficult to detect.
The heart is a small machine that undergoes our dreams.
And sometimes falters.
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You underwent open heart surgery in July ...
Life is a succession of hurdles to overcome ... Sometimes hate too.
Like the rest, I went there without fear, a little rebellious.
I found myself in this world that we applauded at night and saw how naked we are.
The intrusion was strong and I still feel it.
I still have pain in my shoulder.
Opening the rib cage, I think.
I have no problem with the piano, but I play on a smaller guitar.
You have adapted ...
I think it's a childhood thing.
Linked to the fear of confinement.
I had great fears when I was left alone.
Once, I was even forgotten in a closet
(laughs)
.
But if you dominate the fear, you are fine.
This operation opened up new avenues for me.
Unable to touch my guitar for several weeks, I became interested in software widely used in rap and electro.
At first my old brain didn't understand its logic, but after a while the music flowed like water.
I am sure that this parenthesis of the heart, like this livestream, made me progress, in my technique, in my desires.
How was the Enfoirés without an audience this year?
I missed him, of course, but the joy of seeing us again was extraordinary!
As at the Victoires de la Musique
(Editor's note: of which he was honorary president),
we were all more invested.
And in Lyon
(Editor's note: where the show was recorded in January),
I felt protected, because we were in a sanitary bubble, confined to the hotel and tested every two days.
Afterwards, I did big TV shows with a lot of artists where it was much less well supervised.
Are you vaccinated?
Yes.
I got it thanks to my operation.
With my age and my thing in my heart, I'm happy to be protected.
Ten people from Adrenaline Studio have been working for nearly a year on the live streaming that Jean-Louis Aubert will be giving this Monday.
LP / Olivier Lejeune
His livestream uses the same technology as Mandalorian and Fortnite
All those who have attended Jean-Louis Aubert's last two solo tours have been thrilled by the marriage of his creative freedom and the technological avant-garde of the sets.
This livestream promises to go even further.
Ten people from Adrenaline Studio have been working there for almost a year, joined by a film crew.
When we discover the cube in which the artist will perform this Monday (at 9 p.m. on the songkickpresents.com site), we are first blown away by the quality of the images in augmented reality and in 3D and by the twenty or so computers and screens that run and face them.
"His concert will last over an hour and a half with surprise guests and a chat chat," explains Sébastien Mizermont, the boss of this company who made himself known by creating the hologram of Jean-Luc Mélenchon during the last campaign. presidential.
It will be a journey, with a dozen sets and several holograms. For Jean-Louis, we use the same software as the
Mandalorian
series
and the Fortnite video game.
But we develop it with several cameras and virtual sets that come to life live.
The three 85 m2 led walls alone cost 300,000 euros.
"