Yelle: North American tour review
- Oct 30, 2008
Yelle, merely hearing the name makes me conjure up images of Julie Budet aka Yelle gyrating her hips in those lovely red shorts in the video "Je Veux Te Voir", moisturizing up her legs in "A Cause des Garcons" and not to be forgotten the brief boobie flash in the video "Ce Jeu". Honestly, I'm not a pervert. I just have a massive crush on her, someone I like to call "wifey" she just don't know it yet. So when a few of us Killahbeez heads were invited on Tuesday by Sealed With A Kiss to check her out I was definitely stoked at the opportunity.
Arriving at 10:30ish, we were right on schedule and quickly grabbed a few shots, before seeing the lights being dimmed and the fans quickly rushing towards the stage. The lights came on and there in front of me was "wifey"...errr I mean Yelle with Grandmarnier and Tepr. The synths kick in, followed by drums, the instrumental had people going nuts and everyone that didn't already make their way to the dance floor did so at this point. A few moments later Yelle starts singing the lyrics to "Tristesse / Joie", there's one part of the song around the 3:50 mark where the beat goes down and builds back up, seeing that live was crazy as the build-up came and hit it's peak everybody wilded out. As the song ended, she thanked Vancouver for having her and in her adorable French accent asked the crowd "Are you ready to DANCE!" a resounding hell yeah was shouted back.
The up tempo song "Mal Poli" would be the next song we were treated to. Watching her dancing across the stage back and forth was quite a site. She was ass shaking and getting the crowd to do the same, it was infectious and there was no possible way that you could not dance. Yelle kept the pace by going straight into "85A" before going into "Dans Ta Vraie Vie", which has a very Missy Elliot-esque feel to it.
This lead to her taking a quick water break or maybe it was for the crowd to take a water break so that we could keep up. In any case the break ended with her asking the crowd if we knew "Je Veux Te Voir", and the crowd cheered. The song is a controversial one as it disses Cuizinier, a member of the Parisian hip-hop group TTC, the song also was originally titled "Short Dick Cuizi" and was the song that blew her up on MySpace. From there she went into the third single from the album Pop-Up, "Ce Jeu", which is easily one of my favorite tracks. At this point I noticed everyone is soaked in sweat, myself included, it felt like we were all in an aerobic class, a hot sexy French aerobic class.
She ran through a list of most of her songs while maintaining the same energetic pace throughout her set. "Les Femmes", which is the next single from what I've read and an interesting one at that, as it talks about a possible lesbian romance. Part of the chorus says, "If the guys don't open their hearts to me, I feel that I will go see somewhere else, there where all is beauty and full of sweetness, the woman", quite a sensual song.
As this song ended she would let the crowd know that the next song was their last. She then asked everyone to sing along to "à Cause des Garçons". I can't say enough about her dancing on stage as she really just puts it all out there and seems to almost try to translate her songs through her dancing for the audience. The song started out as the original and towards the end of it they played Tepr's remixed version of it, which has harder drums driving the track as well as a more techno feel to it. Fans would come to find out that this wasn't the last song as she stated and performed three more songs, ending on another Tepr remix, this time for the song "Je Veux Te Voir".
The concert was an incredible one and as I mentioned above, it felt like an aerobic workout with the amount of dancing going on. I wasn't sure what to expect before going into the show but I came out totally amazed at how well she was able to maintain the crowds attention and control us at will. When she spoke, everyone was in an "awwwwww she's so adorable" state, as her thick French accent made her sound so cute and loveable and not to mention sexy. I would definitely recommend everyone to go check her out when she hits your city, definitely worth the money. Thanks again to Sealed with a Kiss promotions for the hook-up, be sure to check out their upcoming shows at www.sealedwithakisspresents.com.
Photos from the concert seen at our Flickr site.
Below is her set list, but I must warn you, I maybe missing a song or two because I know at one point I was just staring at her through my camera lens. I wasn't even taking pictures just staring.
Yelle Set list
Tristesse / Joie
Mal Poli
85A
Dans Ta Vraie Vie
Je Veux Te Voir
Ce Jeu
Jogging
Les Femmes
à Cause des Garçons (Tepr Remix)
Mon Meilleur Ami
Je Veux Te Voir (Tepr Remix)
Full North American Tour Stops
Dallas, TX House Of Blues (October 7)
Austin, TX The Mohawk (October 8 )
Miami, FL Polish American Club (October 10)
Orlando, FL The Social (October 11)
Washington, DC 9:30 Club (October 13)
New York, NY Webster Hall (October 14)
Boston, MA The Roxy (October 15)
Detroit, MI The Magic Stick (October 20)
Chicago, IL Logan Square Auditorium (October 21)
Milwaukee, WI Turner Hall (October 22)
Denver, CO Ogden Theatre (October 24)
Salt Lake City, UT Urban Lounge (October 25)
Seattle, WA Neumos (October 27)
Vancouver, BC Commodore Ballroom (October 28)
Portland, OR Berbati's (October 29)
San Francisco, CA Mezzanine (October 31)
Los Angeles, CA Henry Fonda Theatre (November 1)
San Diego, CA Beauty Bar (November 2)
