TEARS FOR FEARS: LIVE CONCERT AT PARC DES PRINCES
Paris, June 18th 2005
Aahhh….Paris, the city where everybody falls in love…. The atmosphere was definitely perfect for me to fall in love. People here were very lovely, the girls of course. I was alone here, and I was here for the famous Parc des Princes music festival. To see whom? Tears For Fears!!!!
It was a very crowded audience and I was surprised to see soooo many girls in their young age excited to see one of the legendary band of the 80’s Tears For Fears. I was sure that most of them were just born when Tears For Fears reached their peakest career. Yes, perhaps they were here to see other performances. But still I was very surprised to see they were eagerly waiting to see Roland Orzabal and Curt Smith.
Anyway to make the story short, they finally appeared on stage! Roland was holding his guitar and wearing a shirt with batik-like design. Still with long and loosed hair, with a bit wrinkles in his face. Curt was wearing a very casual clothes. Just a tshirt and blue jeans! Oh and he’s holding his bass guitar. To my surprise I saw Nick d’Virgillio, Spock’s Beard drummer and currently lead vocalist, behind the drum set. Wow! This was definitely going to be a very interesting evening! There were also a supporting guitarist and a keyboardist. A also saw many cranes with videocamera, plus many videocameramen. It would be released as a DVD I thought. That would be great, since the last Tears For Fears video live performance was their 1990’s Going To California promoting their album Seeds of Love.
The band started with Secret World from their latest album, Everybody Loves A Happy Ending. Roland took the lead and his vocal was as good as always. Well of course it wasn’t fair to compare with their last performance together in 1990. But still Roland was marvellous! I really like this song, especially it was a live version. The arrangement was a bit different. Perhaps was just the mixing, and fitted for stage performance.
They continued with another track from the album, Call Me Mellow. It was a very Beatles-influenced tune. I really like this song! The vocal choruses were lovely! I could see Nick gave his contribution in the background vocals. The arrangement again was stripped down, but I liked them more than the album versions.
The next song was Sowing The Seeds Of Love! I reaalllly loved this song!!!!!! It was their progressive rock song from their 1989’s Seeds of Love album. Nick’s drumming was giving the song uniqueness. He often gave variations which made the song different. The crowd knew this song and they sang along with the guys! I even saw a couple kissing! Suddenly I remembered my lovely daughter, Ratnadya, who loveeesss this song very much. She can even sing all through the song!
Next Curt took the lead and sang Pale Shelter taken from thei 1983’s The Hurting album. It was very nice to hear again Curt’s voice, and he looked very fresh although with those grey hair. I really enjoyed his singing. Then Roland again took the lead with their single from latest album, Closest Thing To Heaven. Again a Beatles-influenced song.
The band delivered Mad World and their smash hit single from 1985, Everybody Wants To Rule The World. The very inspiring-critique song was very popular among the crowd. They wave their hands and it was with joy! Head Over Heels was the Roland’s next and one of my favourite. And when the evening started to fall, the keyboard intro enter the famous notes of perhaps their most-known song, Shout. I joined the crowd clapping hands and we were joined by thousands of audience all through the back! It was fantastic!!!!
Tears For Fears only appeared for around 45 minutes and I wished they had more songs to perform. But it must wait for another time, which I didn’t know when. In the meantime, this evening’s Tears For Fears performance was absolutely wonderful, enjoyable, fanstastic, and everything you could asked from these guys!
