Some more news from France

Comments on the last post regarding their Paris gig have been enlightening (and please if you've stumbled across this blog from Google or wherever and you went to the gig, please give us your impressions!) and I just wanted to get a few thoughts out (negative ones first).

The event seemed to be poorly promoted. ybart, for example, mentions that the gig was only mentioned in the Japan Expo newsletter the day before the event. I'm frankly stunned that such an obvious avenue of promotion was ignored. Naturally, perhaps, the gig was not a sell out. Presumably one of the roots of this problem was a lack of communication between Japan and France, but considering the amount of money it must have cost to get Halcali and crew over to France and set the gig up it's incredible that such obvious things as solid promotion weren't worked out into finer details.

Then there's this mysterious French version of Cyborg Oretachi, which still doesn't exist despite their official sites claim that it was coming out on January 24th. I don't work in PR, but it strikes me that getting the CD out before the gig, then have it on sale at the gig itself, would have been extremely beneficial. It's possible that the real purpose of the trip was to have them play at the MIDEM event and get them distributed worldwide of course- and let's not forget the importance of this for their future, especially considering how lacklustre their Japanese sales have been of late.

Regardless, despite it not being a sell out, I consider this gig to be a success for a few reasons. Halcali were the main event here, and I can't remember the last time that was true for them at a gig they played in Japan, where they are usually tacked onto the back end of a few other bigger names and given a lukewarm reception and a very short set. Which certainly wasn't the case in Paris. When I saw the rough set-list (can anyone confirm?) in the comments one thing surprised me- how many songs they played! Both those who attended, and their DJ, Non, talked about the really enthusiastic reception Halcali got from the crowd. Which, compared to the rather non-plussed reaction they seem to get at gigs in Japan, must have put a smile on their face.

Then there were the t-shirts! Despite some confusion (it wasn't everyone who could get a signature, only those who bought a t-shirt- which seems a little conniving) I'm sure they sold a lot of these. Click the names to see a couple of pictures of the signed t-shirts from ybart (showing both front and back) and hasuko.

Finally, and much better in terms of promotion, Halcali will be appearing on the French DSL channel Nolife

While you would have to be in France to see this (I guess) ybart has offered to sub the videos and upload them to Youtube. Which is something I know we would all be hugely grateful for!

Thanks to Patrick for the TV info, and again thanks to everyone for leaving their impressions of the gig.

UPDATE: Here's the first video from Nolife's 'Halcali week', subtitled and uploaded by the wonderful ybart, who promises more of these to come as they are broadcast. As it's the first one, Halcali don't make an appearance until around the 7:50 mark, but if you're anything like me you'll like the video game related stuff that proceeds it too.

Again, a million thanks to ybart for doing this! Looking forward to seeing more.

(UPDATE 1.5: Sadly, the video has been removed, although it was for some very sound reasons (see comments))


UPDATE 2: Pictures from the JaME blog here. Can anyone translate?