Matthieu Chedid, Beyoncé and SCH, the phenomenon of concert films

After OrelSan, Taylor Swift and before M (December 7) and Beyoncé (December 1), it is the turn of SCH, heavyweight of French rap, to go through the concert screened in cinemas, a transposition amplified in recent years .

For SCH, it is the show on July 22 at the Vélodrome, OM's famous playing field in Marseille, filled with 53,400 fans for the artist's ten-year career. Captured by nearly 70 cameras, this concert is scheduled as a single session on Thursday in 200 cinemas in France, Switzerland and Belgium. The incandescence of this nearly two-hour spectacle crosses the screen, as AFP saw during a Paris preview last week. But what is it like, experienced from the inside? “It’s a lion’s den, crazy,” laughs SCH, interviewed by AFP before this screening.

The rapper born in Marseille assures that the presence of the cameras only added “a little pressure” in a “deadline”, filling the Vélodrome and singing there, “already so important”. No repeated camera glances for this capture. “The production rather worked in relation to how I am on stage, everyone had to be synchronous, there was no problem,” says the singer of the title A7. “We almost had an F4 fall off the stage but we saved the furniture,” he laughs. The appearance of this racing car (category below the famous F1) is one of the highlights of the show.

The impression of congestion of these shows at the cinema at the moment owes a lot to a “magnifying glass effect”, described to AFP Thierry Fontaine, president of Pathé Live, broadcaster, among other things, of concerts on big screens, offered to all cinemas, large network or independent theaters.

This manager sees “the impact of the recent broadcast of the Taylor Swift concert and booking levels in the USA”. However, in 2023 alone, Pathé Live has already broadcast concerts by Billie Eilish, BTS, the ephemeral trio Grand Corps Malade/Ben Mazué/Gaël Faye, Metallica, Roger Waters and even Johnny Hallyday with an old remastered show.

And this fall, as Thierry Fontaine says, “after Taylor Swift, OrelSan, there is SCH, - M - and Beyoncé, even if, for her, it is not 100% concert but a documentary with the creative process of the Renaissance Tour and its world tour. “Concerts screened in cinemas have been happening for a long time, but with a turning point for current music on March 27, 2014 with that of Mylène Farmer in theaters in France, Switzerland and Belgium, with more than 100,000 admissions in a single screening,” notes the manager.

In the 2000s, David Bowie already offered his London concert live in cinemas in Europe (and delayed elsewhere, such as in Asia). The concerts we are talking about at the moment have already taken place.

“I didn't want to appear redundant with the mass of other cinema concerts so, in the editing, there are very “clip” parts, special effects” underlines SCH. Post-production simply highlights the colors of the visuals broadcast at the Vélodrome. We also note a nice slow motion on Fade Up in a duet with the Belgian rapper Hamza, one of the peaks.

Note that Taylor Swift's cinema concert, with 64,000 admissions for France, remained far from the blockbusters of the genre: Mylène Farmer, this time in 2019 (134,000 admissions in France), and Indochina in 2022 (119,000). The result of the American, "which would make classic films green with envy", is however less good in France "compared to Anglo-Saxon countries", concedes the president of Pathé Live. Because her tour has not yet passed through the country and the singer's fans "did not want any 'spoilers'", explains Thierry Fontaine. The artist wanted 15 sessions spread over four weekends, but “the more we spread out the sessions, the more we lose the event character”.