Date: 21 February 2007
Originally published in: Pierrickmoritz.wordpress.com (France)
Written by: Pierrick Moritz
For the first concert of her European tour, Kim Wilde chose Paris and ‘La Cigale’ (a small theater with about a thousand seats in Montmartre ). The last concert in France of the English rock singer had taken place in this very theater in 1994. Unlike last night, the 1994 concert was far from being sold out. Except from the logistic imperatives, it took a real courage for the singer to come back to this place. This first concert of the European tour was above all a harsh task for a ‘so 80’s’ singer.
Fears of the audience were reinforced when a DJ equipped with two laptops came on stage to play club mixes for the first part of the show. As in a trade show, he offered CD to the spectators of the first row: the worst could be feared for the star and for us. But when Kim Wilde’s performance proved to be a success, the DJ’s one seemed finally rather nice.
Kim Wilde sang most tracks from her new album and some songs of her oldest records with new orchestration and a more mature voice. She also interpreted two covers with a surprising ‘Enjoy the silence’ from Depeche Mode.
Kim Wilde conquered the audience because she really is a singer of the 2000’s… and even ot the coming years. Through a nice and powerful voice (which even covered the extreme sounds of electric guitars), her ease on stage (she easily made herself at home) and her exceptional humanity towards the audience, the ‘return of Kim Wilde’ reminds Tina Turner’s one on early 80’s : a promising future…
More than just a very good artist, Kim Wilde is also a happy woman, and she knows how communicate that. The audience can feel she did not come back at any price : she really seemed to have a lot of fun on stage and she’s not desesperately seeking to be ‘always on top’.
She sings because it makes her happy and because we asked for it! And it seems as if she had not fun any more on stage, the beautiful Kim would find other attractive things to do in her life.