Seeing Zaho

or Fanboy, Part II

Aspiration ©2024 Patrick T. Power

As I wrote last month, I was excited about being able to see Zaho de Sagazan perform in person, which I did a couple of nights ago at The Independent here in San Francisco. I'd seen on her Instagram account that she had been to Montréal at least a couple of times, so I figured if I were to see her in concert, it would have to be either in Montréal or somewhere in France. I totally didn't expect she'd tour the states anytime soon, but not long after following her account, a graphic was posted that announced shows in New York, Los Angeles, and SAN FRANCISCO! Within twenty-four hours, I bought tickets and asked my former girlfriend Sophie if she wanted to go. I figured she'd like Zaho's music, so I sent a couple of YouTube links as samples. I'm glad I acted right away as the show sold out pretty quickly. (As did her two nights in New York City, where a third show was added. She also had a date in Los Angeles which had to be moved to a larger venue because of the huge response.)

The day of the show, I had to take something to the post office, so I decided to go to the one in the Haight and along the way, stop at The Independent, where Zaho would perform. I asked one of the stage crew setting up the event if I would be able to bring my "real" camera to the show. I had attempted to contact Zaho's management to get permission to no avail so I thought it would be prudent to ask up front. She doesn't appear to have an actual website—only a merchandise site which has no contact information or webform—and looks to rely on Facebook and Instagram as her conduits to the world. I was told that "usually, cameras with interchangeable lenses" were not allowed. The operative word, of course, is "usually." I thought I'd call the office when I got home to get clarification and maybe even get permission from her management who was traveling with her, but I decided not to bother. I also considered just taking the camera and concealing it beneath my sweater but ultimately decided, "Fuck it... I'll just use the phone."

We arrived about fifteen minutes before the doors opened, and while in line, we met a couple who had traveled in from Chicago for the show. Like Sophie and I had, they'd met in Paris—he a native French person from near Rennes, in Bretagne, and she a Chicagoan. She told us that he is related in some way to Zaho (his brother is married to someone in her family, I think?). I told him that we had been to the Bretagne region in 2011 for our friends' wedding, and I showed him a picture or two from that trip. I told him the civil wedding took place in Sainte-Avé and a second one took place at the reception site at Au Domaine du Porho, which I think he searched for on his phone to discover that it was near Vannes, with which he was very familiar.

Once the doors open, we got separated from the couple as we gravitated towards the outer area of the floor space. (I saw them later in the second row of people near center stage.) We had been to a concert at The Independent only once before—to see Johnny Flynn in 2010—and we sat to the right of the stage that night. When I checked that area out, though, I found it had been reserved, so we went to the other side of the room where there was similar space. We opted instead to stand. While we waited, the venue became fuller and fuller and it became clear to me that many of the people were French, which, I determined, was why the show had sold out so quickly.

A little after 8:00, a trio of musicians came out—a woman who sang and played a keyboard and a drummer and bass player. I hadn't been aware that there'd be an opening act, but I guess I shouldn't have been surprised. She was not particularly good... neither her songs nor her voice were anything special. In fact, she often had trouble finding the notes, but she might have been nervous. The biggest response she got was a performance of The Cranberries' "Linger". I never looked into the Cranberries when they were a thing, so I didn't know the song. But Sophie did, as did the woman to our left. Both agreed that this performer's voice was no match for Dolores O'Riordan's. She probably should have done more cover songs.

As the time for Zaho's set drew near, we got closer to the stage. Somehow, space seemed to open up and we found ourselves about four rows away from the stage, directly in front of where a keyboard occupied the stage. I was happy with that as I knew Zaho would play a song or two at the keyboard. We got into another discussion with a woman to our left, and she and I shared how we'd become obsessed with Zaho. She had seen her performance at the opening of the Cannes Film Festival whereas, as I've noted before, a reel of her had popped up on my Instagram feed.

Zaho and her band came out a little after 9:30, and I was surprised that she immediately sat down at the keyboard. I was also surprised that the first song was "La fontaine de sang" (Fountain of Blood) as it's a bit somber both in tone and sound. (I discovered just now, too, that French poet Charles Baudelaire wrote a poem with the same title.) I took a photograph of her at the keyboard but because there was a light directly behind her, it created quite a bit of flare. I got better pictures of her during "Aspiration" (below, and at the top of this post).

Aspiration II ©2024 Patrick T. Power

Years ago, when I was active on the listservs for Dar Williams, Richard Shindell, and Dave Carter and Tracy Grammer, I would scribble down the setlists for shows I attended so that I could post them to the discussion lists. I sort of wish I'd done that the other night. I also sort of wish I'd taken more photographs than I did, but there was a part of me that wanted to take in the show more than I wanted to record it. I recorded no video because I didn't want to obstruct the view of anyone behind me for the length of a song. That I'm a little over six-foot tall was probably enough of an inconvenience for them.

Based on her translator-assisted conversation with English pop star Tom O'Dell, I was under the impression that Zaho didn't speak much English, so I was surprised about her rather lengthy introduction to "Mon inconnu" which tells of the love affairs she has in her head with 'unknown' people because she has no romantic love in her life.

Introducing Mon inconnu ©2024 Patrick T. Power

If she wasn't all that fluent at the time she'd met O'Dell, she has made enormous strides since; she's quite funny as well. Of course, expressing her vulnerabilities while speaking in a foreign language only made her more charming—plus charmante.

Dis-moi que tu m'aimes ©2024 Patrick T. Power

I was quite sure that when she sat down at the keyboard again she'd perform "Dis-moi que tu m'aimes" (Tell Me That You Love Me), and after a brief prelude, she played the opening notes of the song. I wasn't able to hear to know for sure, but when she paused before the first words, she reacted to someone in the audience by turning to her (I'm sure it was a woman) and half smiling/half laughing, and my thoughts were that the audience member started singing the song before Zaho was ready to start. (You can see the interaction in this video at about the 1:40 mark.) These are the things I've seen in videos that have drawn me to her as an artist. There is something about her that seems egoless. She seems to actually see her audience as more than just dollar (or Euro) signs to be collected at the end of the night. As I watched her, she regularly made eye contact with people, acknowledging them in a way I've not often seen with performers, especially those in the pop world.

Zaho also gave a lengthy introduction to what is probably her most well-known song, "La symphonie des éclairs" (Symphony of the Lightning) in which she talked about her hypersensitivity—the basis for the song—and saying that as a child, she would cry without really knowing why. It is the song, of course, that had popped up on my Instagram feed back in June or July, and I have listened to it so many times I almost have the whole thing memorized. As has been customary for some time now, Zaho extended the song a bit in order to foster a sing-along of the chorus with the audience:

Il fait toujours beau au-dessus des nuages
(It's always beautiful above the clouds)
Mais moi, si j'étais un oiseau, j'irais danser sous l'orage
(But if I were a bird, I would go dance in the storm)
Je travererais les nuages comme le fait la lumière
(I would traverse the clouds as light does)
J'écouterais sous la pluie la symphonie des éclairs
(I would listen in the rain to the symphony of the lightning)

Without a doubt, it is the centerpiece of her shows, and it has appeared to me that she thoroughly enjoys that her audiences sing along with her. I can only imagine the thrill she got when she experienced that for the first time.

The concert proceeded from there into the dance portion of the evening. As I noted in my earlier post, techno-dance is part of her thing, and while several songs throughout the night were indeed dance-inducing, Zaho took off the white blouse you see in the photos above because it was time to let rip.

Now, something you don't now about me is that when I was a freshman and sophomore in high school, I danced. The Funky Chicken was big in those days, and at the school dances, it was common for little circles to form, with one person after another taking turns dancing solo in the middle of the circle. I was one of those people. But since then, I've become reluctant to dance in public for reasons I can't explain. I just lost the desire or inspiration or nerve, I guess. Still, I had a feeling that if there were a night I would dance, this might be the night. Might be. Sophie freely dances and on several occasions tried to pull me into moving and I tried. Sort of. But I just can't let go to the degree that she does or would like me to.

The last song of the evening was "Dansez" in which Zaho basically implores her audience to dance to a driving techno beat. Midway through the song, she came down into the audience to dance with the crowd. She danced for a minute or so directly in front of centerstage, then moved in my direction and stopped to dance with me, even reaching up and putting her hand on my shoulder. It was a little surreal. And I loved it. But it left me a little stunned because it just... happened! When it was over, the woman next to me, with whom I'd had the conversation earlier about how we'd discovered Zaho, tapped me on the arm in approval.

Zaho and the band left the stage then came back for an encore, David Bowie's "Modern Love", which she had performed at the Cannes Film Festival. There was more singing along. And then the show was over.

As I look through the photographs I took, I count only fifty-five frames, but all are little sequences of frames that were taken during four or five songs. Sixteen alone were taken during her introduction of "Mon inconnu." I guess that I didn't want to spend my evening taking pictures after all, although surely I would have had I brought the real camera. (I really would have preferred higher quality images, especially considering my proximity to the stage and Zaho.)

But here's the thing... I mostly appreciate having had the experience of seeing Zaho in concert... of not seeing her through someone else's lens. I'll say it again: I've not been this excited about an artist in a very long time, and even still, I can't seem to bring to words to describe why that is (despite all the words in this post). I hope I get to see her again sometime, maybe in Paris. That would be sweet. In lieu of that, I hope she thought enough of San Francisco during her brief visit (she was here for barely a day) that she returns soon. Maybe I'll have memorized most of her lyrics by then.

SET LIST (as best as I can recall, and likely not in order):
La fontaine de sang
Aspiration
Le dernier des voyages
Ô travers
Je rêve
Tristesse
Hab sex
Mon inconnu
Dis-moi que tu m'aimes
La symphonie des éclairs
Ne te regarde pas
Dansez
Modern Love (encore)

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Zaho de Sagazan

or Fanboy

Zaho De Sagazan, Paléo Festival Nyon 2023. ©Paléo/Anne Colliard

Next month, I'll be going to my first concert in several months, and only the second since the COVID-19 pandemic hit. Anyone who knows me knows that music and concert-going has been a major part of my life for the last thirty years or so. Not just because music has always meant so much to me—that friend when I didn't have one—but because it was also my job for a long time, booking a thirty-a-year concert series for almost ten years, and then a traditional arts festival for seventeen, with a couple of years in which I did both. I also managed an artist's first year or more as she began her career.

As a booker, I often went to shows to check out talent, but one of the perks of the job was being able to call up an agent to get comped into a show just because I wanted to see someone for my own enjoyment.

After I was rather unceremoniously dumped from the festival job, my interest in music took a big spike. As noted above, the pandemic also helped [sic] in that regard, I suppose, but mainly, there was a certain loss in joy as it pertained to live music. Hell, I don't listen to music as much around the apartment anymore, something I never would have foreseen twenty years ago. And on top of that, the 2016 election sucked so much joy out of life.

But a few months ago, this video popped up as a reel on my Instagram feed, likely because I follow a number of French language accounts. The singer's emotion hooked me immediately; as did the melody; as did the words. The experience was something akin to discovering Dar Williams almost thirty years ago. I had to find out more about this person, this Zaho de Sagazan.

The song she sings in the video is "La symphonie des éclairs" or "Symphony of the Lightning," and for days, I listened to it over and over and over again while on my way to jobs or while out walking. Because I have so desperately wanted to understand French—I've been trying to learn it for going on twenty years now—I listened hard to the words to try to make sense of them without the aid of a translator. Indeed I understood most of them and got the gist of the song, thanks probably to its slow-ish pace and the fact that she pronounces almost everything clearly (to my failing ears). It moved me in a way that I can't explain. Maybe it's because she considers herself to be a hypersensitive which resonates with me to a degree?

I looked for live versions of it in addition to that reel clip. I found this one, a performance at Les Victoires de la Musique, which appears to be France's equivalent to the Grammy Awards. I was knocked out by her presence, her movements (she took eight years of dance), her ease with having a camera in her face as she performed, her intensity. That said, the musicians behind her bewildered me somewhat. I found it interesting that they had their backs to the audience, and—because I'm not hip to electronic music—I had no real clue as to what they were doing with those boxes. I spoke with a musician friend of mine in Paris about it and he told me that the boxes were synthesizers. Such is modern music, I guess.

I was so excited by this discovery that I shared the Les Victoires video with a few friends, but unsurprisingly, I suppose, it didn't have the same impact on them because... French. I soon learned that Zaho's recording had been out since 2023, and that she had won five awards at Les Victoires. She most definitely was not une chanteuse inconnue in France.

All of her songs are not of the variety of 'Symphonie.' She is indeed a child of her time, so dance-techno is a big part of her shows from what I've seen on YouTube. I think back on my trip to Paris in the fall of 2007 when I attended the massive annual Techno Parade and the—I'll say it—unbearable volume that ripped through my body, no doubt damaging my ears, makes me wonder what I'm going to experience next month. I'll definitely be wearing ear plugs during certain segments of the show. (I'm still pondering whether or not to wear a mask, leaning towards yes.)

When I initially looked her up, I found this video in which she meets Tom O'Dell, an English pop star whose name sort of rings a bell, but I can't really say I'd heard of him. There is so much about their ideas about music and being musicians that resonates deeply with me. Perhaps the one thing that really hit home with me was when she said, "What I find a little crazy about Tom's music is that it can make us sad or comfort us and it's the same person that's making you sad and comforting you at the same time." In fact, lyrics from the bridge of "La symphonie des éclairs" translate to: "I will make people dance to the rhythm of my tears | The torment of my songs will come to warm hearts, to warm my heart." From that same meeting, there is a video of the two of them performing the song together at the piano, and her expressions throughout are as touching as their performance. Her joy at singing with her mentor is quite moving.

I have listened to her record dozens of times already, and every now and then a new video of her performing "La symphonie des éclairs" pops up, and it's clear to me that the song is going to be performed for a long time, and not only by her. Its message is universal. I hope she never tires of singing it. At the moment, it seems as though she's entirely thrilled to have her audiences sing with her, so much so that she now extends the song to include them.

But it doesn't end with that song for me. Zaho was selected to perform at the opening ceremony of the 2024 Cannes Film Festival. Greta Gerwig had been named as president of the festival's jury and in her honour, Zaho, who speaks little English, sang David Bowie's "Modern Love". Perhaps the most astonishing thing to me about that performance was how she made performing at one of France's most important events all look so easy... at twenty-three years old.

When the Summer Olympics kicked off in Paris earlier this year, I was surprised (and frankly, a little put off) to find that Canadian Céline Dion—and not a native-born French singer—had been selected to perform at the opening ceremonies. But I was later delighted to find that Zaho would open the closing ceremonies with a performance of "Sous le ciel de Paris" (Under The Paris Sky), made famous by possibly the most renowned French singer, Edith Piaf.

Recently, Zaho released a revised version of her record to include eight new songs, one of which was co-written and performed with none other than Tom O'Dell. (It's a little cheesy, but also moving in its own way.) At first, I thought the additional tracks would alter the feel of the record, but no. I was concerned, too, that she'd change the sequencing, but was pleased to find she'd merely tacked them on at the end.

I mentioned earlier that she seems so completely at ease in front of the camera, whether on French TV or—as with the Olympics—in front of the entire world, but social media was coming of age at the same time she was—she was 10 when the iPhone was born (Twitter, too, I think)—so having a cameraphone in her face probably has been second nature with her for most of her life. One of my favourite video moments occurs during a performance of "Aspiration" on C à vous, a French television show hosted by Anne-Elisabeth Lemoine (who I can tell LOVES Zaho). The moment comes at about 2:05 in the video when she approaches co-host Patrick Cohen and makes a face at him.

I realize that this is quite the long post in praise of a musician that most—if not all—of my handful of readers will shrug their shoulders about, but the last ten years in this country have been nothing short of hell. I'm expecting that the next twenty—if I even live that long—will be considerably worse. So I'm glad to be able to rave about one thing that brings joy into my life.

I plan to post photos and/or videos from the concert next month.

Fanboy, Part II: Seeing Zaho

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