Here is my review (I am late but no time before with work and the kids), forgive my english :
I was there with my tallest daughter, my father and a good friend of mine. Let's go to Bercy : the excitment to go a gig, to meet again known faces (most of them have also used the mk.com presale), to get my daughter to a "rock" concert. We enter, she has her eyes largely opened : wow Bercy is big !
It's hard to describe the sensation of happiness to be at the first row, 3 metres away from the stage, when there are 12000+ people behind you
- the four seats on the right on the pic taken by John (see John's diary :
here).
A girl told us the gig will be recorded and available the day after, ok ok I told her that I know all about that and that I already put links to simfylive on my website
Glenn came down from the stage and made a sign to my daughter to offer her a MK pick. Hmmmm thanks Glenn, the evening starts very well !
I've found the opening part from Kate Walsh average, well boring. It was annoying because it has delayed the beginning of the gig for one hour, and my girl was then already a little bit tired and she wanted to see Mark.
21:00, lights off, the band take the stage. Mark speaks in french. The audience is hot, everybody is standing up to welcome them. First song and my girl claps, sings and dances. Cool, she loves it ! :p
Mark eplained why he was seated on stage : his doctor told him to avoid disco dancing, walking, running, but that he can make some cycling, some "bicyclette" said then Mark in french. Funny.
The setlist was "standard", I admit I would have loved a
Cleaning My Gun, like the day before. We at least have succeded to make them "play"
Oe oe oe under the "pressure" of the audience, right before SOS (so only 4 musicians on stage, I would have prefered the full band, especially Matt as my favourite version of "Oe oe oe" is from Lille 2005 with his jazzy piano part). It's fun because one week before the gig I had shown this one to my girl and she loved to sing it.
Then a rarity on this tour :
A night in summer long ago, but Mark's voice was not at its top
Well, a good gig, but not perfect, Mark was lacking some inspiration on his solos, making some errors at the bad moment (but is there a good one for them ?).
Such seats offer us to clearly admire the wonderful guitars of Mark (I love the Pensa and the National), but also the way of playing all of the musicians (excepted Matt almost unvisible behind his organ because of the height of the stage). As in 2008 I have enjoyed lloking at John, for example while he was playing guitar and having a great time on Coyote (loved his sound on that song).
During the gig many musicians were giving smiles to my daughter, especially Danny.
She had made drawings at home that she wanted to give to Mark, I was really wondering how we could do that ! And then there was the "bulls race" to the stage, after Marbletown. I ran (hmmm, only 3 meters) to try to get a place just behind the barrier so that my girl could see Mark very close. At the end of TR, while they had the "beer break", I thought it was the right time for the drawings. I have put her standed on the barrier, she has her drawings in her hands. We make signs to Mark, to the musicians that the drawings are for Mark. They smile and Matt understands and comes to take them. We won't know if they have taken a look at them, but my daughter was really happy then (and me more and more exhausted to hold her in my arms, TR is a long song, but there were 3 others coming).
But at the end of the gig there was a surprise. Mark made a sign to Danny, who "ran" to get his drum sticks. I had understood what will happen : Danny was going to offer the drum sticks to my daughter. Big mistake, Danny have put them in Mark's hands who came in front of ther, bending himself and giving them in her little hands, with big smile and sign (you can see a video of that moment on my website).
Thanks Mark for taking attention to kids. She had stars in her eyes, and I thought there were 12000 people jealous.
I would say that because of my girl requiring a lot of attention, I was not "in" the concert at 100%, I was not concentrated on the music as usual. So my feelings are not
I have finished the gig totally exhausted (it was hot inside) after having my girl for such a long time in my arms.
For that evening to be perfect I was missing :
* my wife Yolande
* some more inspiration from Mark on his solos (I forgive the mistakes)
* and a little "Local Hero" to close the gig like in 1985, 1991/1992, 1996, 2001, 2005 and 2008.
I now hope that my wife and I will be able to do Bilbao, and maybe N
