A unique concert from one of the Maghreb’s living legends.

Album « Live à l'Olympia », Café de la danse / EastWest, 1999

For those with an eye for the finer details, we salute you...

This could start with something like "I had a dream..."

Many years ago, as I had just left school to work in a small recording studio in Lyons (my native town), came to our city Jean-Michel Jarre (the world-famous elevator music composer) for a concert given in honor to the Pope John-Paul II. The concert was recorded and that was Le Voyageur. I was going to the rehearsal every day trying to find a way in, to see the mobile unit closer...no way. So I told myself, one day...

Not only that day came, moreover it was at the Olympia which is France’s and one of Europe’s most prestigious venue and it was Lili Boniche, a legend.

All the audio sources were split between the FOH console and the studio. The concert was recorded on a Sony 3348 HR with Le Voyageur II’s Neve VR. There’s not much to be done while recording the show except checking that all the sources are (and keep being) present. But the most impressive thing was changing the tape. Fortunately, the show was in two-parts, so that was cool between the first and second reel. For the third, we agreed with the band to do it during the musician’s introduction. Watching Le Voyageur team changing the reels was a breathtaking experience, yet short as it took about 7 seconds. This day has been really enjoyable and memorable, thanks to the people at Le Voyageur II.

The mixing took place at Davout’s studio A. In order to keep the live atmosphere as much as possible, I decided to mix on a "reel-basis" rather than on a song basis. The SSL 9000 (v3 at the time, v4 released just afterwards is, well, rather buggy but much cooler in many ways) handled those long mix passes very well. Printing the mixes onto DAT was an amusement too: "ready ? Rolling !" and we just had to sit back and listen to 45 minutes of music, watching the faders move. I definitely like concerts.