Record: when Johnny Hallyday was reborn on the Eiffel Tower

Did you want worship? You had some. Johnny plus the Eiffel Tower, who says better? Two national monuments made in Francethe first made of leather and bone, the second made entirely of metal beams to which were added, on the cold night of December 3, 2011, the heat of the amps and the chrome of the guitars.

It was necessary at least that to celebrate the rebirth of the phoenix Hallyday. Two years earlier, his operation for a herniated disc had almost caused the suddenly fatal stainless steel to pass from life to death. The convalescence album, composed and performed with -M- in Los Angeles, was poorly received. Worse, we had talked more about the singer for the legal-financial saga of his failed operations and for that, even more extensive, of his residences between Switzerland and California.

Quickly, Johnny had to show that he wasn’t dead. Better, that he was alive and well with the desire to fight, and what could be more solid for that than a stadium tour? The press was invited to Paris to hear the news, with the added bonus of a private concert on the 1st floor of the Eiffel Tower.

“I thank God”

“I remember an island, with lots of people’s faces moving further and further away, then the black hole… Since then, I thank God every day for being there. I had to work quickly on a project, for my morale. This accident allowed me to understand how much I love my job and how much I wanted to meet people again.” This, Johnny Hallyday confided to us between his eyes the day after this performance where “the Taulier”, 68 years old at the time, had affirmed his act of (re)birth in rock clothes, the ones he would wear until his death. Or a group entrusted to the Gibson of ex-FFF Yarol Poupaud, who rid the icon of his variegated blisters and put him back on the path of Eddie Cochran and Little Richard.

Thirteen years later, the sharp riff of “I was born in the street”, after an inimitable “bonsoar”, brings back to life the raw joy of this return live, a small half of which had been the subject of a video capture ( long available on YouTube). But the 50 minutes of this electric delicacy, balanced between earth and sky in a setting of steel and light and in front of 300 people, had not been published in full.

Should we wait? “The concert event at the Eiffel Tower” (not to be confused with those, maousses, given on the Champ de Mars in 2000 and 2009) will not make us forget the great live recordings of the singer, those of the 70s especially, when Johnny – Already! – confronted his audience on stage to assert a future for himself. But these 13 songs, drawing largely on his youthful repertoire with the exception of the then unpublished and very forgettable “Autoportrait”, exude a palpable freshness, a complicit energy, as if he were inviting us into his rehearsal room to understand what rock does a Johnny hone to.

In this minimal format without choristers or brass instruments, seven with his comrades (including Genevan Fred Jimenez on bass), the singer returns with confidence, carried by Greg Zlap’s harmonica, here roaring. Everything is played square, solid, a trial run for this risky formation which will pay off during the upcoming tour. Johnny slams his sentences as he had smacked the muzzle of a journalist from “Parisien” earlier during the press conference. “I don’t like nice guys when I meet them, then who write trash behind my back,” he explained to us the next day. Wholehearted, brawling… Himself.

One could assume, listening to the live performance, that he is playing in reserve after two years of semi-rest. No shouting, no stentorian cry to remove the tower from its foundations. Sober. Whatever the reason, this economy of vocal cords contrasts pleasantly with the amplitude of the stages and vocalizations. Johnny gave what the size of the crowds, and their love, demanded of him. During his coma, the government even mentioned a national funeral. “It seems, yes. I find that absurd,” he laughs to end the interview.

He received them on December 9, 2017.

Francois Barras is a journalist in the cultural section. Since March 2000, he has been recounting current, past and perhaps future music.More info

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