The Voice

Invitation to join an Amy friends group following the TV show The Voice. It's been three years now that this group has been gathering together in front of the television at photographer Marc Attali's place on Saturday nights.  

Amy joined them for last years 2013 series where a man with a extreme stutter, won against all odds. 

A meal followed by four hours of shouting, dancing, singing along, commenting on cosmetic surgery, singing abilities, choice of song and judges eccentricities. A glorious cacophony ! This night, the three judges are picking their teams. In these competitions they sit looking away from the singer. Only listening to the contestants "voice".  If they like what they hear, they push a button and their chair jerks around to face the singer . 

If more than one judge "turns" then they each have to explain what they think they can do to help the singer improve or bring out hidden qualities and so advance in the competition. 

Judge Mika

Each judge chooses 15 singers for their group. Each judge will have a kind of co-coach : Kylie Minogue, Gerald DePalma...

The Franch Canadian "Garou" 

They then choose two, sometimes three of their team to go up against each other in what are the "battle sections" of the competition. After each battle, each judge chooses who they want to continue working with. They are looking for singers that the judge thinks have a possibility of winning the entire competition. And it's brutal. 

The women, judges and contestants alike all wear the shortest of dresses and the highest of heels. Either that or the tightest of jeans. The gentlemen all wear stuff that looks like they have gotten up late and had to rush out to catch the bus, throwing on a leather jacket over their tee shirt and jeans. Hair mussed up. All of the guys except judge Mika, a dandy if ever there was one.

No one is very old with the exception of one judge...who seems like quite a father figure. It is he that takes a chance on the guy singing Nessun Dorma from Turandot...as well as one of the older contestants singing a Barbara Streisand song about being a woman in love. 

The father figure, Florent Pagny, is frequently a target. One contestant sung a hit song for a former girlfriend of his, Vanessa Paradis. Florent? He remained rock solid looking straight out. Emotionless.

Judge Florent Pagny

Another young man took the challenge of singing a song written by Florent . But he didn't do anything with it, styling it just like the original interpreter . Mistake. Not chosen even by his hero! But take heart ! He's all of 16 years old. There is still time to work on his voice and return another year. because return they do. 

One woman failed this part of the competitions two years ago. This year she came back 30 kilos lighter, with a new outfit and haircut chasing her dream.

So to take  a very long story short...Last bus home. Here it is 3 am and I've watched Rose Fortunes, all of her in the 2013 Israeli X Factor competition competition as well as the best X factor auditions on you tube...I'm just bowled over by what I've heard. No kidding ! These folks have out of the ordinary courage. Us ? the Amy friends ? We are meeting up next week and the weeks after for the brutal "battles"'  semi-finals and the grand finale.  when France's The Voice of 2014 will be chosen. And I can't wait. Certainly the most fun I've had in quite awhile. It's been positive and she must have loved this, our Amy Ami being surrounded by this happy, demonstrative crowd.