Tonight 16hp plays at the Maroquinerie, a nice and very small venue in Paris, close to where Pascal Humbert used to reside when he lived in France.
Same opening act (Lazzzi) as last night in Evreux, so we decide to enter the venue late... Still, we caught the end of their act and it sounded a bit better than yesterday. Are my ears getting accustomed to that sound???

But time for some 16hp! The stage is almost at the same level as the crowd, which makes it quite difficult to see everyone on stage, unless you're in the first row. But on the other hand, this creates some kind of warm atmosphere, which is always nice with bands such as 16hp.

The sound of the venue is not as perfect as yesterday, but the atmosphere is a bit better. And a very nice thing about this show is that the setlist is different from the Evreux one. Whereas on previous tours in was very often the same night after night. The same songs are played, but not in an other order, and that is enough to make you feel like you don't know the setlist!

Noticable during that show: maybe the most powerful version of Clogger I've ever heard, played absolutely perfect. And also, tonight the set was longer as they played the 2nd encore that wasn't played in Evreux. These extra three songs allowed us to hear some tunes that we hadn't heard on stage for ages: Partisan, and Coal Black Horses that changed into Dead Run without a stop in between. And that was the great end of a very good show!

By Arnaud

16hp played a gig at "La Maroquinerie", a small intimate hall. But beforehand, we had to endure the opening band, some obscure French trio who shall be nameless, and should remain unknown for music's sake. They played basically noisy music with "neo-realistic" spoken lyrics about contemporary angst. Diabologum used to do that so much better...

Therefore, the contrast was all the more striking when powerful "stage gods" 16hp stepped in. Four musicians: the blond, diaphanous singer DEE, looking like a young Klaus Kinski and endowed with a fantastic, magical voice; a very dandy-like drummer, JYT; a bassist, Pascal Humbert -both are French and the latter has just released a creditable instrumental album entitled Lilium; and a more... sober-looking guitarist, Steven Taylor. Once he was on his stool, the singer would not move (sic) from there, not until he went backstage again.

He started off with gentleness, with his magical bandoneon. The spine-tingling atmosphere is guaranteed, and the whole gig was equally thrilling, alternating blues, country and rock. Perfect musicians, one of the most beautiful voices on this side of music, and a masterly performance. The tracks heard on the albums get quite another dimension: incomparable, sublime, their specific arrangements for live performances reach unparalleled peaks, so that the gig was definitely no rendition of studio recordings.

They were also generous with their encores: first they played a version of Joy Division's Day of the Lords (welcome to the Twilight Zone, or did I miss something?) that was even greater than the original song, and later, a cover of one of Leonard Cohen's most beautiful songs, The Partisan.
And the gig was crowned with a fantastic, boisterous (ironically, the French for "boisterous" is very close to the English word "devilish") Coal Black Horses, obviously played, like the rest of the gig, with much pleasure.

We closed the music box and kept it treasured under the pillow...
...to be opened again anytime.

Translation by Magali