Halcali in France

As you were probably aware, Halcali played at the Japan Expo in Paris, France. Thankfully, an anonymous reader (please leave a name!) was able to go and share their thoughts. I'll just block quote their comment here. If anyone else went along, please share your impressions of the gig with us!

i just came from the concert. i was surprised because they performed with a guitar player. they rocked more than ever! they played a couple of new songs, 'cyborg ore-tachi' being the first one. it sounds very halcali, very polysics, very electro, very pop, very perfect. the other ones were stormers as well, i think one of them was the ram rider one (Harukarimichi-jariten). the next album will be miles better than 'ongaku no susume', i'm sure. i was already kind of hyped, but now i'm über-extra-hyped!
they also played 'twinkle star', 'shibafu', 'tip taps tip', 'girigiri surf rider' and 'densetsu no futari' as an encore, though not in that order, i have memory flaws, sorry.

it was kind of short, but intense, my only gripe was the venue. it sounded wonderful (and i mean it) BUT IT WAS SEATED! i mean, a halcali concert seated, it was a nonsense.

Sounds like it was an excellent gig, and a good mix in the set between lively and subdued. Shame about the seating though. Now, if only they would do such gigs in Japan.

Also, worth noting is Halcali's latest blog entry. How good does this sound?

５日から、おフランスのパリ～に来ております。HALCALI、ヨースケ＠HOME、DJ GOTAN(DigiCut)
今日、ポンピドゥーセンターというところで初のストリートライブを決行しました。
上の写真はそのときの様子。
勝手にハーモニカを吹いて参加してくるおじさんや、勝手に踊りだすおじいさんとジャムリつつ・・・、アコースティックバージョンで、new album「サイボーグ俺達」の中から「endless loveｒ's rain」や「look」などを披露しました。立ち止まって聴いてくれたお客さんがヨースケのギターケースにお金を投げ入れてくれました。

メルシー。

１時間弱の演奏で、26ユーロものお金が集まりました＾＾

We've been in Paris since the 5th with Yusuke@home and DJ Gotan. Today, we did our first ever street performance infront of the Pompidou Centre. The picture above shows us in action!
We ended up jamming with a couple of old guys, one who just jumped in playing the harmonica, and another who got up and started to dance.
From Cyborg Oretachi we played endless lover's rain and Look and so on on acoustic guitar. A few people who stopped to watch on their way past threw money into Yusuke's guitar case.

Merci...

We made 26 Euros in an hour!

I'd pay money to see that. I wonder if anyone caught it on camera?

UPDATE (S)-

• Here's some videos on YouTube of the gig. I've not had time to go through them yet, but it looks like a good chunk, if not all of the gig is up there. This one's kind of cute too.

• Here's a great video of the gig from florent carayol!

• Here's some blurb from Sony

HALCALIは8日にライブで登場しました。
そこでナント！5000人にも及ぶ総立ちの観客の前でアンコールを含め、熱狂の堂々のライブを披露しました。その後のサイン会には数百人に人々がつめかけ、会場終了時間の7時を大きくおして
7時45分すぎまで約2時間近くもＣＤを購入したファンのサインに応えました。

Halcali took to the stage on the 8th. They put on a show, including an encore, in front of a crowd of over 5000 wildly enthusiastic Halcali fans!
After that is was time to start signing autographs, and there were so many hundreds of people crowding round them that they had to push the closing time of the venue from 7 to 7:45pm, and in the end Halcali were putting signatures to their fans' CD's for close to 2 hours.