A View From The Emerald Isle of France's Diamond, Mylene Farmer

 Mylene Farmer Concert Review

This is slightly different to my usual radio blog posts but in a round about way it is about the power of radio. During the Covid lockdown I listened to online radio from around the world and especially after the passing of another favourite artist of mine Johnny Halliday, I thankfully discovered Mylene Farmer and I fell in love with her music, her live performances and I became a big fan thanks to radio. The next logic.al step was to travel to see her magic on stage.

I've also written this as a personal memory was Youtube took down the video I had made to commemorate my time at the concert. 

There are not many artists that could get me onto a flight from Dublin to beautiful but extremely hot Bordeaux but Canadian born and the belle of France, Mylene Farmer did just that. Her Nevermore 2023 tour, in support of the release of her L'Emprise album, was her first since Timeless in 2013. A Stadium tour, comprising of fourteen stadiums across Europe, sold out, with over half a million tickets sold. On Bastille Day, July 14th, she arrived at the Mamhut Atlantique stadium for the first of two sell out shows. 

Firstly, the only negative comment about the show, the chaos of the queues to get into the stadium was a disorganized mess for both French and non-native visitors alike, shockingly bad. Enough of the negatives. As the night drew in at 9.15pm, the giant screen came to life and like a scene from Alfred Hitchcock's Birds, a conspiracy of ravens, the theme of the staging, filled the screen. The crowd stood and roared their approval. Then the flame-haired raven herself, Mylene appeared centre stage, with the screen projecting her possessing wings of her own. She then began a two and a quarter hour marathon of tracks from 'L'Emprise' and her greatest hits.

 

I may not be fluent in French, I've enough to have an argument in a shoe shop, but the music, the pure voice not showing any signs of decline as she moves into her sixties, the theatrics, the dancers and the quality musicians by her side including her long-standing keyboard player Yvan Cassar made this one of the best concerts I was ever at. Mylene oversees much of the design of her shows and with the lighting, the theatrics, including giant arms that swung her out over the crowd and the cross shaped runway projecting from the stage all driving this juggernaut of a show career through at breakneck speed.

With the audience in the palm of her hand, she became quite emotional as the crowd serenaded the lady in the middle during her rendition of 'Rever' (Dreaming). The hits were all there, 'Libertine' ,'C'est une Belle Journee' (It's A Beautiful Day) and 'XXL' along with new tracks, a duet with aAron on Rayon Vert' (Green Ray),'A Tout Jamais' (Forever) before finishing two and a quarter hours later with her greatest hit 'Desenchantee' (Disenchanted) by and an encore of 'Rallumer Les Etoiles' (Rekindling the Stars).

 

And with that Mylene was into her people carrier and gone. Finally to put the opening negative into a positive, the exit from the stadium was excellent, as a fleet of free shuttle buses took thousands back into the centre of Bordeaux where the fireworks, music and dancing continued into the wee small hours of the morning. If you are unfamiliar with Mylene's work I highly recommend her Timeless 2013 concert on YouTube. Magnifique!!!!

 

Finally I’ll get to enjoy Mylene once more when I head to Paris for October 1^st 2024. Until then I have Mylene’s duet with Moby on loop as it is an instant classic.

Mylene’s Irish Fanclub