dominicambrose.com Blog

2008 la fête de la musique: the bollywood karaoke star and the rest.

June 22nd, 2008

The stripper continues to strip.

The stripper continues to strip.

The tour St. Jaques has lost another layer of renovation tarps making it look more impressive than ever,
and the city baked under the first strong sun in a week. I was downtown to meet some friends, but the crowds made me lose the desire to walk around and check out the various wannabe acts shouting about on the streets. Some musicians had big crowds blocking the sidewalks and street, while others sang to just a few stragglers.

The Lonesome karaoke singer:

This man, on rue Faubourg de St. Denis, was singing to no one at all. What’s worse, the music store that he was standing next to was playing recorded music very loud, as though to drown him out. He was singing with an amplifier and a karaoke CD of Bollywood music. I stopped and listened and took a picture and clapped and called out bravo at the appropriate times, all under the bemused gaze of the young men hanging out at the music store. I listened to two songs, until I realized that the man was singing awfully off-key. Then I quietly left.

At the end of the street, where it meets Boulevard Magenta I found the real subcontinent party, the Franco-Bangladeshi concert. that was good for awhile, but I got tired of standing in the slightly tipsy crowd, so I moved on, stopped by an Arabic singer in a cafe for awhile, but ended up celebrating la Fête de la Musique the way most people do, I suppose. I watched it on TV, namely the big free concert at Hippodrome d’Auteuil where 100,000 people watched hours of TV ready acts. It was co-hosted by NRJ, so the emphasis was on best selling pop music, there were the expected, Christophe Mae, Calogero and Amel Bent, and they were predictably good, Nadyia was just predictable, lip-synching the same old disco anthem, the mix master of the moment David Guetta, who was goofy when he had to emerge from behind the mix table and actually converse with the emcee Olivier Minne, the mellow Raphael and BB Brunes a young rock group that had a really original sound and stage presence. There was the best and worst of Australia: the classy Tina Arena, and the ditsy bimbo Micky Green. When it was over at one a.m. I turned off the TV and hoped that my whole neighborhood would agree that the fête was over and it was time to get quiet and go to sleep. However, that’s wishful thinking in the extreme. Tonight, despite the warm weather I would have to sleep with the windows closed.