The ideal Johnny Hallyday concert that never existed

Community manager for Le Regard Libre - i.e. a member of the magazine's social networking team - my boss and I share an intimate passion for certain areas of music, and in particular for Johnny Hallyday. To mark the artist's 78th birthday, which would have been on June 15, 2021, we played an extremely pointed game. And oh so revealing of the precise universe we both dream of, far beyond the singer. So here I am, writing to tell you all about the experience.

Jonas Follonier and I are both long-time Johnny Hallyday «fans». I use quotation marks because, while this may be true in principle, I'm less sure about the form of «fan» for this artist. To be a «Johnny Hallyday fan», in the collective mind, is to be a fan of wolves, santiags, Ricard and the redneck (but still funny) jokes of Uncle Thierry (himself a fan of wolves, santiags, Ricard, his own redneck jokes... and Johnny).

Yet Jonas and I undoubtedly have something of both Tennessee and Johnny in us. A longing for the open sea, for far-off places, for wide-open spaces, from the plains of Montana to the rocks of Colorado, from «William's America», of ’a road without red lights from the Hudson River to California« and the «children on their red bicycles handing out newspapers at house doors».». In short, of a certain American dream. And also of spectacle, of excess: of dreams, quite simply.

In search of the setlist ideal

Some time ago, overcome by a sudden urge (for fun!), I suggested in a fiery message that in a few hours we should each create our own «setlist ideal for a Johnny Hallyday concert».

By this I meant that, while we had attended a few of his concerts separately since the dawn of our passion for the icon and his gigantic body of work, each time leaving us with memories that would last a lifetime, we would never have had exactly the same experience. setlist (the list of songs played at a concert). We would never have experienced THE ideal concert. The one in which Johnny would have played exactly all the songs we'd come for.

Read also | Country in Johnny Hallyday's repertoire

So, if we don't want to go home frustrated, why not invent it ourselves? setlist? That was the game idea I proposed to Jonas. And he said yes. Joie!

Over the course of an afternoon, we delved into Johnny's complete repertoire of 51 albums, comprising more than 1,200 tracks - that's all, please - to put together the perfect sequences for a concert we'd never go to, based on our feelings for each track and the mood of the moment.

Complicity was to give rise to a form of agreement...

The aim was, of course, to find THE perfect song to open this fictitious show and THE perfect song to close it. Because, as Maurice Chevallier said to Johnny at the first curtains of his career, nearly 60 years ago: «Petit, soigne tes entrées, soigne tes sorties. In the middle, muddle through».

Read also | Johnny at the movies, like a final, intimate rendezvous

The complicity Jonas and I share through Hallyday's repertoire is intuitive, almost telepathic. As soon as we mention a song, 99.8% of us share the same opinion within the first two seconds of the subject. And for identical reasons.

So when we talk about (for example) Lighting the fire, Jonas says it's only really well sung on the studio version of this music. I agree, following in his footsteps to underline the fact that «yes, but such an extract of this piece plays very well in such a concert». Jonas adds that «exactly, and here when he pushes the voice to such a time d’Lighting the fire, sounds like an intonation of such a passage from such music ». And I conclude with a definitive «yes, exactly!», amused and almost reassured by this connivance.

Thus, this complicity made me suspect the certainty that when we would make discover our setlist to the other, there would be little difference.

You bet, Charles!

The rule was simple: we'd create a show of around thirty songs («a good Stade de France» I suggested to Jonas, in reference to the nine songs in the Stade de France). shows Johnny Hallyday). No ceiling had been imposed on our fantasies; the setlist that we would put together might not include The penitentiary or Marie. And since there's no pleasure as long as there's discomfort, we could even free ourselves from That I love you, as required.

The result was an immediate surprise:

When Jonas and I got together over dinner that evening to share our respective lists, we were for once a little surprised that our musical friendship was so divergent when it came to choosing titles. Of the 67 songs elected in total, we really only share 4% of similarity from one program to the next.

The same spirit behind appearances

That said, let's take a step back. The two statistics entitled «Use of repertoire by decade» clearly show that Jonas and I prefer the same periods in the singer's career. It's the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s that we've used the most to put together this imaginary show. That's our first connection.

The second link didn't seem so obvious to me until now, and it wasn't until I took a closer look at our results that I realized a real similarity. What we have in common in our setlists ten Johnny albums. Ten out of fifty-one, all the same. A fifth (1/5), rather improbable and rather pleasant at the same time: without foreshadowing or consultation, we confirmed our similar opinions on all our tastes.

In a world where Johnny would have celebrated his 78th birthday on stage today, it's therefore likely that, on my way to the concert for which Jonas would have written the setlist, I would have said to myself, «Well, this really is the best Johnny Hallyday concert ever.» And vice versa. Which of these two concerts would you have liked to go to?

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