Vanessa Paradis - Divinidylle Tour

2008 live album from the French chanteuse (and long-time apple of Johnny Depp's eye). The Divinidylle Tour finds Vanessa on tour promoting her excellent Divinidylle album and includes 20 live versions of old and new favorites. Universal. 2008. Album Description

Warm, Fuzzy, Spectacular : Paradis & Chedid are Pure Magic

While I believe that the "Collector's Edition" DVD of this Tour is the only way to go (it consists of the DVD + CD + Tourbook), this review is for the music CD of the tour, which I believe is one of the finest recorded French-language tours (get the DVD to find out why).

Note that the CD does NOT contain all the songs from the DVD - and the tracklisting is altered a bit. No matter though, because the songs flow beautifully, and they retained all the best tracks anyway. Vanessa Paradis is a lovely vocalist, one of the few French songstresses who bothers enunciating words properly - so you can actually understand what shes saying (especially important on double entendre songs such as "Des Que J'te Vois").

The album opener surprised me, only because "Irresistiblement" was one of my least preferred songs off of "Divinidylle", Paradis' 2007 album. But as she takes the stage wordlessly, to a huge wave of applause, and launches into the beautiful line "Je pense a ce Boeing, qui viendra ce soir", you can tell that shes done something different with the arrangement of the song (with -M- on electric guitar at the back).

"La joie est fort comme le douleur,
c'est tantot l'un et tantot l'autre - le vainqueur"
("Joy is just as strong as sorrow,
its always one or the other thats the winner")

"Irresistiblement" was never a favorite track of mine, but as she suddenly launches into the bridge section, you are amazed at what shes done with the song. Overnight, it became one of my favorite Paradis tracks, though admittedly the album version still sounds kind of flat. The live version is like a totally different song, and what a powerhouse vocal and band performance it is. They tear the house down. The last four lines of the song are extremely moving, extremely spiritual - just superb.

One odd misstep here is the version of "Be My Baby", which sounds forced and totally outdated (compared even to some of her Vanessa's oldest hits from the 1980s). My special favorite was the new rendition of timeless classic "Dis-Lui toi que je t'aime", from Vanessa's "Variations sur le meme t'aime" album from 1990. This has always been a perennial fan favorite, and she performs a quiet version of it here accompanied by Mathieu Chedid on guitar.

Franck Monnet's timeless lyrics on "La Melodie" really come alive here, as Vanessa interacts with her audience on the song - it sounds fun live, almost jazzy, and the last two minutes of the song become a sexy, slinky, smoky bar-infused orchestration that really works. The electric guitar influence on all the songs here could have been a huge mistake - thankfully they work, even on songs where they take center stage (such as Franck Monnet-penned "La Bataille")

Inclusion of 1987's B-Side "Varvara Pavlovna" by Franck Langolff is a welcome addition, though its easy to see why this wasn't released as a proper single back in the day. I have the original version of this song by Paradis from 20 years ago, and it sounded squeaky and almost unlistenable, so I'm glad to have a brand new version with the grown-up Vanessa singing it. However, a 'redux' version of her "Joe Le Taxi" does appear on this new CD as well - I'm not a huge fan of this either, but I suppose she feels she HAS to sing this at every concert of hers'.

"Pourtant" from "Bliss" has always been my favorite Paradis track and over here she changes it around, and the song almost stops in the middle to accomodate a guitar-riff and breakdown by Mathieu Chedid, that converts the song from a slow-burn ballad into a scorching acoustic-rock number. What a stunning transformation. A few more treats abound here - Charles Aznavour's classic "Emmenez-Moi" is covered by Vanessa. This is a beautiful song, and I urge you to check out her studio version of it on the 'Special Edition' of "Divinidylle" from late 2007.

Third Single from "Divinidylle", "L'Incendie" (which she performed live at the Victoires de la Musique earlier this year) is rendered pretty much the same way as it appears on the studio album. One song that didn't quite work as well as I thought it did was "Chet Baker" - the studio version is still the definitive version to go with - but who doesn't love this song anyway? The energy that Paradis displays on her live version of "Des Que J'Te Vois" is unmissable, and since this was the second hit single from her album, the audience seems to be waiting for it, and the magnetic opening chorus sets the tone for the track - towards the end, Paradis converts it into a callout, asking the audience to complete her lines.

The end of the CD may seem a bit slow to most listeners, but you have to put it in context of the live show. On the DVD, this makes more sense. Towards the end, Vanessa bids adieu to her entire band (including Chedid, who spends the whole show on stage with Vanessa upto that point). She then takes the stage solo for a soul-stirring rendition of Jeanne Moreau's "Le Tourbillon de la Vie", before winding it up. Before this, she also pays homage to her son Jack (on "Jackadi"), daughter Lily (on "Bliss"), and partner Johnny Depp ("St. Germain", which incidentally was written by Johnny Depp).

This is an incredible, incredible concert by a woman who doesn't rely on studio or stage trickery to succeed. Its evident the crowd is massive, and the interaction between artist and audience really works well (much better than the Mylene Farmer concerts in Bercy, for example). But the only way to enjoy this is to also get the DVD. It remains the definitive document of this amazing concert, and the CD is just an add-on bonus, not the real star. Still, for completists, this is absolutely essential.

And remember, check out the Collector's Edition DVD of this package, available on this site, or get it from Amazon's France site - its the French release of the year!

Five Stars.

1. Irrésistiblement
2. Divine Idylle
3. Les Piles
4. Be My Baby
5. Dis-Lui Toi Que Je T'Aime
6. Que Fait La Vie?
7. La Mélodie
8. Junior Suite
9. Varvara Pavlovna
10. Pourtant
11. La Bataille
12. Joe le Taxi
13. Emmenez-Moi
14. L'Incendie
15. Revenants
16. Chet Baker
17. Dès Que J'Te Vois
18. Saint Germain
19. Jackadi
20. Le Tourbillon October 16, 2008

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