A Michel Sardou concert is always an event.
Especially when it's his goodbyes.
Magic of the television calendar, Paris Première is broadcasting La Dernier Danse this Saturday, the singer's show recorded in May 2018 at La Seine musicale (Boulogne-Billancourt), while he is performing at the same time at La Défense Arena for the end of his “I Remember a Farewell” tour.
His last, he has just promised.
So let’s go back six years.
In 2017, Michel Sardou, tired of 50 years of triumph, hits and galas, decided to end his career as a singer.
Why always write the same song?
Why continue to sing “
I will love you to make all the Marquis de Sade pale
” at 75?
To thank his audience, and before leaving for the theater, the artist built a tailor-made farewell concert.
Very little originality in the choice of songs: Sardou gives the audience his iconic songs: La Java de Broadway, Je t'aime, Le France, La Maladie d'amour, Étre une femme, Afrique adieu, Les Lacs du Connemara .
There are some gems like Io Domenico and L'An mil.
And two new ones: San Lorenzo and Le Figurant.
First on the reserve, the man who was worth 100 million records first performs his singing tour with diligence.
Then, unable to curb his provocative nature, tickles the women in the audience, feminists in general and some politicians.
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" I was mistaken "
Next comes the emotion sequence.
The end is coming.
The spectators chant “I love you, I love you, oh yes, I love you” to thank their champion for all these years spent with him.
As often to end his concerts, Michel Sardou travels to Connemara, THE ultimate hit - which caused a lot of ink to flow this summer after an awkwardness by Juliette Armanet (she had mocked the singer's repertoire).
It tells the story of this Irish wedding in a classic orchestration, but still just as intense.
But he stops suddenly.
" I was mistaken.
I've been singing it since the dawn of time and I had to get it wrong this evening for my farewells... You can see that I have to stop, I'm not in my right mind anymore.
We're going to start it again.
» The happy public is entitled to a second Connemara to prolong the celebration.
On stage, Michel Sardou can appear conservative.
But this is often false.
Sardou is a beast of the stage.
Not the Johnny style to sway or sweat in front of hysterical fans.
The man with more than 10,000 awards likes to offer his audience different things.
Reworked orchestrations (without distorting the cult songs): for this “last dance”, you have to listen to Je va t'aimer and Les Ricains, perfectly brought up to date.
He has always wanted pharaonic stagings: the central decor of Bercy is being brought up to date for the two Parisian concerts this weekend.
There is also a completely new style exercise in 2007 with the “sketch tour”: nearly twenty minutes of one-man-singer-show where Sardou alternates jokes, self-deprecation and hits (“What could I be?” stupid and pretentious at the time,” he says after starting the couple of I want to marry her for one evening).
A furious desire to sing
For the 2024 tour, he chose less common titles (Parlons de toi, de moi, L'Autre Femme, Le Bac G, Je vole) and a more scripted and daring medley (Le Temps des colonies introduces Afrique adieu…).
Michel Sardou is a trickster.
“Hi, he came to say hi,” he says at the end of this concert of The Last Dance.
A short year in the theater, the Covid blues and a furious desire to sing will have precipitated his return.
How to come back after leaving.
In his boxes, the artist exhumes I remember a farewell.
This will be the name of the new tour.
Goodbyes are always for others.