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Jerry was playing Paris for the fourth year in a row, in 2004
and 2005
he played the Bataclan (audience capacity of 1500 people), in 2006 he played the well known Olympia (2000 people approximately), but tonight he was playing a much bigger venue, The Palais Des Congres, a capacity of 3700 almost fully booked). Somehow the tour organization had decided to have Jerry and his group stay in Brussels for the last three dates of the tour, so they all came into Paris from Brussels in the afternoon and returned to Belgium right after the show. A very tiring decision for everyone but fortunately Jerry had an hotel room made available so he could rest when he arrived in Paris in the middle of the afternoon. But it was not the case for the musicians. They did a sound check around 16:00 and waited for the show at 20:30. After an excellent blues band doing the first part, Jerry’s band attacked their part with Ken doing “Oh Lonesome Me”. Each band member did a tune and while Buck Hutcheson was doing his number, Jerry was patiently waiting on the side of the stage, ready to get to the piano. He was warmly welcomed by the audience when he got in, kicking off with ROLL OVER BEETHOVEN. It was a rather long version with nice piano solos. Next he did YOU BELONG TO ME. His voice was a bit hoarse probably needing to get warm, but after this number his voice was powerful. He alternated rock and slow numbers doing next WHY YOU BEEN GONE SO LONG, YOU WIN AGAIN (beautiful version of my all time favorite slow song by Jerry) which he introduced as a request, BEFORE THE NIGHT IS OVER introduced as from his new CD, NO HEADSTONE ON MY GRAVE, and next was the highlight of the show with a fabulous version of HADACOL BOOGIE, a very long version with fantastic boogie piano solos. Just for that song it was worth going to the show! Fantastic! Next was a surprise with the never recorded Red Foley’s number AS FAR AS I’M CONCERNED. This was followed by one of the audience favorite, SWEET LITTLE SIXTEEN. Next Jerry said “I know you want rock and roll, but we will slow down first and then will do real rock and roll!” and he sang Mack Vickery’s THAT KIND OF FOOL. Next were his two greatest hits: GREAT BALLS OF FIRE first, followed by WHOLE LOTTA SHAKIN’. The audience stood up as he started GBOF and hundreds of fans packed the front stage overpassing the security. When Jerry stood up pushing back his piano stool, he faced the audience, thanking them and giving hand clapping to them as an appreciation for the warm receipt they gave him. Overall Jerry stayed on stage about 50 minutes and he gave a good show. He seemed to be in better shape than in 2005 and 2006.
Before the show I was lucky to talk to him in his dressing room, I was
there along with Wim de Boer and his son Freddy. Jerry said that he always had a nice audience in France. Wim presented him the last edition of the Fireball Mail, and Freddy took a picture of Jerry reading it and sitting with Wim on his side. It was also a great pleasure to see again Cecil Harrelson (Jerry’s best friend before he was known and his manager from 1961 to 1975), his daughter Mary jean (also Linda Gail’s daughter), Kenny and the Band, Jerry’s daughter Phoebe, Jerry’s manager J.W., Gary Cunningham (B.B. ‘s son) and many friends from the UK, Germany and of course from France.
Altogether a very good show and a very good time, just regretting that they all left for Brussels after the show.
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