MONTPELLIER, FRANCE – Every year, for the “Fête de la Musique” France Television organizes a gigantic free open-air concert from a different French city where all the French music scene is invited to perform live. This year, my hometown Montpellier was chosen for the event. Lucky me! Thousands of people gathered on “Place de la Comédie” for the occasion and more than 3 million watched the show on television.
Many popular artists took the stage (Indila, Yannick Noah, Christophe Maé…) but one of the guests yesterday night was no other than Conchita. Eurovision 2014 winner was given the chance to perform in France for the very first time. We all know that the French are probably one of the most Eurovision-sceptic audience but the lady took up the challenge in a magnificent way. It’s important to underline that her performance was a premiere as no Eurovision winner had ever performed during Fête de la Musique before.
Since Montpellier is often considered as the second largest gay community, and probably the most gay-friendly city in France, Conchita’s performance was much talked about and highly expected. People and viewers were not disappointed, the diva did the job!
Conchita appeared on stage in a superb Jean-Paul Gaultier dress. Her performance of “Rise Like A Phoenix” was great, even though one should admit it was far less powerful than in Copenhagen. I guess the open air stage did not help. After the song, Conchita gave a short interview where she declared that she was happy to be in Montpellier in front of such a crowd, and she repeated her message of freedom and tolerance. One of her notable sentence was “I want to be a lady on stage and I’m allowed to do that”. She ended up her speech with a lovely and well pronounced “merci!”.
It’s our turn now to thank Conchita for her visit and the lady can be sure France has now adopted her.
EDITOR’S VIEW
As part of the audience I must say that her performance reminded me of the Tolmashevy Sister’s one in Copenhagen. On screen everything was perfect and the reception was highly positive. But viewers could not hear the incredibly loud booing that also took place during and after her performance. To be honest I was quite surprised and disapointed to witness this, but once again, even in Montpellier, tolerance seems to be a luxury that everybody cannot afford yet…
DID YOU KNOW?
In 1983, French culture minister, Jack Lang, decided to create a special celebration of music on the very first summer night, la Fête de la Musique. In all the 36,000 municipalities of the country, people are allowed to play and perform on the streets and thousands of free concerts are held all over the hexagone. The event has gotten incredibly popular and evey year, the french are looking forward to June 21st to party. This French creation has also become international since many countries hold the same celebration under the name of World Music Day or Make Music! (Belgium, Switzerland, South America, United States, Canada, Sweden…).
