Élodie Frégé @ A38

The advantage of taking a male photographer to the concert of a chanson singer in a tight black dress is that you don’t really have to move a finger to have hundreds of pictures. The disadvantage is that you have to go through all of them and check which one is best.

We have to confess to not having known much about Élodie further to the little black dress (how very French of her), but her Wikipedia entry reveals the fact that she won an edition of the French Star Academy and has been releasing albums at a steady rate ever since. These albums will definitely not change the world, not even the world of music, or that of French music in particular, but prove to be entertaining enough for a pleasant evening on A38.

We do further appreciate the fact that she danced quite intensively on dangerously high heels for most of the evening- and then gingerly admitted they were killing her, and went on without them for the rest of it. For this feat Élodie and the band were rewarded with a few shots of tequila by some of their more enthusiastic fans, who managed to balance the items all the way to the front row- life on A38 is all about equilibrium, no matter how inebriated you are.

As one might have noticed from the above paragraph- she of course had a band as well, which often goes unnoticed with solo artists- and sometimes with actual bands too, if the lead is charming enough to greedily get all the attention.  So to the defense of her band, they weren't half bad, particularly the badass bass guitar player, whose skills with the instrument were matched by her splendid red velvet pants- of which you can get a glimpse below.

 

The Budapest Saint Patrick's Day Parade 2015

Brendan Behan claimed that the Irish do not have a nationality, but a psychosis, which might be correct- and it might also be contagious. No other nation in the world, particularly not a relatively tiny one, with 6 million people stranded on a remote island, could generate such a commotion in a Central European capital thousands of miles away from said island.

The crowds are larger every year, to the confusion and merriment of passers by- and not so much merriment for the folks stuck in their cars on Andrássy avenue as the long orange-white-green snake slowly crawled away towards Instant. Two little old ladies were so taken aback by the sight that they insisted this must be a political party, albeit they had no idea which one it could be, since the Irish colours are most contradicting if one takes into account the local political spectrum.

As a side note, each year the weather is forecast to be horrible to near apocalyptic and then it turns out just fine. Luck of the Irish, one could say.