I’ve had a very lucky year so far. And this was proven once again on Thursday when I was lucky enough to win a competition run by those lovely Cinémoi people to go and see the gorgeous Mélanie Pain at The Jazz Café last night.
I have actually seen her before – she was the most distinctive voice of Nouvelle Vague, featuring on their best album, Bande À Part, and I have seen her twice as part of the band, and then once after she had left them, and I’d gone to one of their gigs and she was actually supporting them. That was towards the end of 2009.
I was blown away when I last saw her, so when I entered the competition, I thought I’d book tickets anyway – but the gig was sold out! i was gutted. And then I got the mail that I had won the competition!! Woohoo!! Happy days.
My mate had agreed to go with me, but on thursday night, he went out and got totally drunk, and so had a really bad hangover on Friday, and was making all sorts of indications that he was going to flake out on me. In the end though, he pulled himself together (mainly out of guilt from the show that he’d dragged me to on Wednesday which was rather ‘interesting’).
He is now officially a little bit in love with Mélanie Pain — which I strongly believe anyone would be if they experienced her live.
Not only does she have THE most breathy, sexy, sultry French singing voice, but she is gorgeous in that easy, chic way and she is FUNNY!! She can work an audience really well, speaks to them inbetween each song, just generally chatting, saying a bit about the song, explaining anything that needs explaining to a non-French speaking audience. She swears in English SO beautifully – you just die to her her say ‘fuck’. And she banters with her band (two men this time – last time I saw her, there was only one), but not in a conspirational way that excludes the audience. She smiles, she laughs, she breaks into giggles, she looks like she’s really enjoying herself!
My mate went into the gig feeling tired and wishing he’d gone home to bed really, and came out feeling upbeat, happy and just generally ‘lifted’ by the whole experience.
She even sang “God Save The Queen” from her Nouvelle Vague days 🙂 and at the end, the three of them came out into the audience and sang acapella, including some die-hard French fans who knew all the words and had come over to London specially to see them.
If you’ve never heard of Mélanie Pain, I suggest you have a listen – maybe first to anything from Bande À Part by Nouvelle Vague (an album anyone who lived through the 80s should have in their collection!).
My London Life In Reviews 