Another concert is coming up. A real one, indoors, with tickets. So many people. The inner courtyard glows, this sparkle of expectation. It’s been a long time. I want to save every process: scan the ticket, hand in the bag, sip on the wine. Plastic cups, just a concert.
But nothing is “even”. Everything is special because again. The opening band gives everything. Then comes Zaz and by the third song sitting is forbidden. We jump up. A voice sounds behind us: “But it doesn’t work that way. I paid for this.” Boing. slap.
My girlfriend is trying to mediate. It doesn’t work Seating means sitting. We rock for a long time, then another song rushes our legs. So get out of here, and dance, dance.
There we stay, looking down where everything is dancing. Look at the tiers or balconies, where almost everyone is dancing. There is a Gallic there that sits. About the man who paid. How is he feeling now? And the woman sitting next to him? Such small battles are like great ones. There are no winners, only winners. We didn’t want to win, we wanted to dance. He wants to sit.
I resist the desire to keep turning around. And yet, between jumping and clapping and singing, think of our ex-backman. Maybe he can’t stand? But then why no space at the edge? A daring look shows me that he is holding his arms crossed in front of his chest. A monument of defiance. There’s something defiant about my dancing too, but I don’t want that at all. Not today, not here.
It can’t be a question of age
It can’t be a question of age, 50 percent of the interior has gray hair. Hardly anyone who doesn’t get infected by the singer’s whirlwind, who is redefining the word “energy”. So dance, dance, dance.
When the big hit comes, “Je Veux”, nobody sits anymore. Neither did the man who paid. He wouldn’t see anything else and stands, arms crossed. When I see that, I think: maybe we could have come to an agreement. Sitting songs and dance songs. In exchange. Minor and major, because Zaz can do both, the city can. And so nobody loses.
The last song is one to weigh in on. I don’t turn around anymore. The intoxication, the music carries us down the stairs. Hug in the drizzle. And on the tram, the plastic cup in my pocket, I think again: maybe we could have arranged that. But above all, almost everyone danced at the end.