Live Review : Paris (France), March 9th, 2008
Palais Omnisport de Paris Bercy - 15 000 ppl
Back to Bercy, after their first show there in October 2007.This week-end was my lucky week-end, TH wise, so I got a very good spot in the pit.
Except for the many times where fainted girls were evacuated over my head, which ruined several songs for me (none the less "Schwarz", one of my favorites. Just faint or die another time, plz). And TH fangirls aren't even good at that. They're so compressed and obsessed with reaching the stage that it takes forever to evacuate the ones who pass out. Because few people help, and the ones who do are teenage girls who can't carry another girl above their heads, much less extract them from a compact crowd.
The spot wasn't so good that I got to face Bill or Tom or Georg really. My sight was often obstructed by heads, or arms waving cameras. But I did appreciate it for the few seconds, in between the first songs, where the lights were turned down a bit and Bill thought he couldn't be seen then... and he couldn't, except for people close enough from the stage.
His "confident accomplished performer" mask slipped just a bit. He faced the crowd looking every bit his 18 yrs, dazzling smile forgotten, a little tense, as if wondering what the f*** he was doing there in front of 15 000 people screaming for him, and he brought his hand to his throat. I wondered at the time if he was checking that his necklace was still there in a self-reassurance gesture. In hindsight, maybe it was also that he felt the first signs of his upcoming vocal chords cyst. In which case I understand the worried look even more...
In any case, it was... well, a show is a show, and TH is very good at giving you a good one, even if a little too perfectionist so there's little room left for improvization.
That short, stolen moment was the little extra reminding you that the perfectly trained stage animal in front of you is, after all, still a human being.
*pat pat*
It may be more impressive when it's still empty...
A very brave teenager thrown in a place where he sure wanted to be, but a little too fast and out of control, maybe. And sometimes it shows.
They do pretty well, considering.
It also allowed me to hear people shouting "Danke" as they raised their paper sheets printed with the same word (the paper sheets was a planned fan action, the shouting wasn't, but caught spontaneously), and see Bill's reaction to it. Sort of "yeah, that's worth the pre-gig stage fright" smile.
Also for some reason I dig seeing him seating on that stool with his black and white sneakers, but I don't really know why myself. It's just beyond cute, you want to pick him up in your arms like a doll and run away with him. Why, I'm shallow!
Gustav didn't do any special goodbye that time.
Soooo... A very good show, from them, and from the audience, that left me wanting more. Cue me deciding then to come back the day after... Same venue, same band.
