Saturday December 14, singer Clara Luciani gave the very first concert of her new tour in Paloma, in Nîmes, after a week of residence in the Gard venue. An hour and a half of a concert that is already amazing but which is sure to get even better, let’s tell you about it!
“This earthly life is still really good […] This life is even better since she crossed paths with yours.”. It is 8:30 p.m. sharp this Saturday, December 14 when Clara Luciani enters the stage and begins This life. No matter how much we are told that it is not her meeting with us, the public, that she evokes in this song, nothing can be done, we take it well, we take it for ourselves! Clara Luciani has this singular and wonderful gift of spontaneously inspiring affection.
In truth, our affection has been acquired since she unpinned her hair in December 2017. Grenadesealing its Sainte-Victoireby tearing our hearts into pieces, before conversely making pieces of Hearthis second album in 2021. It is therefore his third opus My bloodwhich she comes to defend today in Paloma. For the first time, after a week of residency within the walls of the Smac (Scène de musiques contemporains) in Nîmes. There is a little stress in the air, and in the chorus too, but we take it well too, we take it for ourselves: it is the mark of those who want to do well!
A sober glam rock style
While our friend and her musicians find their marks on This lifeThen Courage, we take the time to appreciate the scenography and more broadly the aesthetics of the show. Like the artist: simple, natural but classy, in a sober glam rock style (this oxymoron!). At the back of the stage, a sort of gigantic round mirror fringed with white pearls (which we imagine for the largest arenas to come, the center will host projections) and a stage on three levels with steps highlighted with lights, to welcome the musicians dressed all in black. Clara Luciani opted for a black and white sailor top and black leather pants. Simple, natural but classy, in a sober glam rock style, we tell you.
Pierre Meuriot
“It’s the very first concert of our new tour, it’s not nothing”confides Clara Luciani in Nîmes, “a charming city and a lucky city. It was here that we launched the Cœur tour and the rest was wonderful… Something like witchcraft is playing out in this room and with you, the best of public!” See, we were right to take it for ourselves! She continues: “It’s possible that there will be little glitches here or there, but that’s okay, right? Since this is a “safe place” and we’re among friends!”
An essential guitar-bass-drums trio
There will only be one small glitch: a false start on My sisterdedicated to the said Elha, her “best friend” present in the room. Clara Luciani will take the opportunity to present her formidable drummer Bastien. With her bassist Pierre, essential to her groove and her guitarist Benjamin, necessary to her glam, they form the trio on which (that’s a way of speaking) the singer’s music is based, in turn disco, folk, pop and rock. . She can also count on a keyboardist and a multi-instrumentalist (synths, percussion, choirs), still a little shy or clumsy in the mix but wait and see! And what can we say about her two excellent backing vocalists, already present on her previous tour, whose appearance in January 2023 at the Sud de France Arena left memorable memories of perfection (for those nostalgic, our title at the time: “Bravo she has won”).
In the meantime, she sings Nueand the pink comes to our cheeks to admire, to his disco-funk rhythm, his always relaxed sway of a frank smile. “Madly, passionately…” We couldn’t say it better but she knows how to sing it even better in Love always. And continue with Everyone (except you). At this moment, we’re not going to lie to each other, in the audience we all have Olaf’s smile, in The Snow Queenimagining the life of a snowman in summer… Well yes, we melt but happy, see? Clara Luciani must see because she sings Rolledhis beautiful epicurean educational anthem, which, melted, gaga, we take well, we take for ourselves!
To calm the spirits, and the rhythm (which does nothing but panic them), Friend’s sorrow arises there, and Clara Luciani arises here, at the edge of the stage, with her guitarist who plays on his acoustic, his woody string of Beatlesian notes. This sweet song is on the album My bloodthat I don’t know how to please is at Heart : a masterpiece of melancholic accuracy which deserves to join the Great Book of Eternal French Song, nothing less. And that voice… brrrr…
A brilliant rock’n’roll sequence
But she has already grabbed her guitar, the message is clear: the rest will be rock’n’roll! The version ofCome on is remarkable, fractured with back-breaking breaks, revived in vocals, emphasized on keyboards, steroidal on bass and struck down by a guitar solo with a beautiful chorus effect. In the process, Clara Luciani mentions Françoise Hardy to whom she has been compared a lot (including us) who she remembers saying that she (Clara) was more rock. “Did he mean “more throaty” or “more rock”, no idea, I don’t know the difference between the “O”s”jokes the singer before performing the song of hers that François Hardy preferred: Like you.
Benjamin and she switched to the Gibson Explorer (it seems to us), the sound is even more massive, the spirit is no longer Beatlesian but Bowiesque. Logically the solo has the aggressive panache of a Mick Ronson and with the flexibility of a feline, Clara Luciani intones All the boys and girls to the melody of Like youand its heavy, powerful rhythm. The mashup is awesome. Clearly, it is more rock, with a “Ooooh” and a “Wow” ! The rock sequence continues with My shadowwhose (melo)dramatic progression delights and drives you crazy. The perfect moment to unpin everything, and To grenadesobliged, and it’s of course the audience that explodes!
An hour and a quarter before reminders
“Everyone leaves in the end”, she then calms us down in a superb, moving version of Romance carried on the piano and supported by the choirs. We refuse to do so, to solitude, which also leaves with “a song that she didn’t write, I would have liked, but Abba found it before me”. And Mireille Mathieu has deliciously Frenchified it, we might add. But, yes, Well done, you won ! After having burnt our minds, we do the same with charging our phones to ensure, if we dare say, a star-studded hold with the most beautiful effect!
The interpretation of Flowers which follows, is sparkling, heady like the scent of roses, psychotropic like those other plants that we loved in the sixties. My sister is very nice (and Elha too, eh), Everything for me on the other hand suffers a little from a slight overload of arrangements, but this is forgotten with the more rock (more acid rock, even) Aloneaccompanied by a magnificent guitar solo which starts again in the coda. Eh ? What ? Already ?
After an hour and a quarter, the time for reminders has already arrived! The rest offers us the opportunity to commune on the most easily class of choreographies: a hand throw with raised arm, with a double flexible twist of the wrist, which signifies un “ciao, bye, bye !” of unmistakable elegance. Clara Luciani takes the time to make a confession (even if she does it over and over again, don’t you think): “It was super stressful doing this first concert! But I think something really happened between us.” And to make, very happy, this announcement that we will remember (we take it well, we take it for ourselves): “I commit to starting all my tours in Nîmes in the future!”
One last piece for the present: Breathehis irresistible hymn to joyous exultation. And another last piece for the future: My bloodhis message to his child. And now we are orphans! “She didn’t sing Heart”, notes our neighbor. Indeed, she didn’t sing it but she gave it all… and she will come back, since she only has one word!
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