Last week, it was 15 years ago that Ferre Gola performed at Zenith de Paris. It has been years ago and hadn't time to do research, so he wrote this based on my memory, so I may have forgot alot of points;
Background;
In 2008, towards the end of Ferre's succesfull tour, a concert was announced at Zenith de Paris for May 16th and posters being posted on streets and different blogs (skyrock). But for whatever reason it got cancelled.
In 2009, on October 15th, Ferre Gola finally releases his second solo-album Qui est Derriere Toi? Despite big criticism against the generique, the album would become a huge succes with hitsongs such as Maboko Pamba, 3ème Doigt, Zazou, Diki-Diki, Kamasutra and Soké. Ferre Gola would held several succesfull concerts in Kinshasa and behind the scenes there were talks about a show at Olympia in 2010 and Europe-tour.
After producing Fally Ipupa at Zenith de Paris in January 2010, Meganet got interested in producing Ferre Gola. After talks they signed a contract in March 2010 for a show on May 15th. The announcement created buzz and Ferre-fans and Ferre's musicians said that they would correct "bic rouge" Fally's show at Zenith and that he (Fally) would receive "Fimbu".
In the weeks that followed, Ferre started to prepare with his band his show. But when the show came close visa problems occurred. It's because of intervention from different politicians that Ferre managed to get more visa's and also his band, last minute to Paris.
D-Day
When it came on the day of the show, another problem occurred. Like, Werrason's Zenith in 2008, Meganet planned a double-show. Before the show of Ferre Gola, there was a festival of Tunesian artists taking place at Zenith. It took alot of time to get the stage fixed, to do the sound-check, etc. Apprently there were also some technical problems, this all made the show start very late around 3 am.
Despite all those difficulties, Ferre Gola managed to pull a great show. However, the hall wasn't sold out. This would cost his head and some press-releases writing some negative articles about the show and blaming Ferre's entourage, forgetting that Fally's show at Zenith also started very late.
There was orginally a tour planned in Canada right after the Zenith-show, but it got cancelled. This frustrated some bandmembers, who didn't want to return back, after hearing that they would get paid in Kinshasa. In their eyes they hadn't receive enough gift and money to go back to Kinshasa. Because of that some dancers, singers and instrumentalists decided to run away. However, some dancers and singers were spotted by fans, who managed to get them back.
Aftermath;
In September 2010, the official DVD of Ferre's show got released on the market and slowly people started to change their mind about the show. The parts of the concerts, who was also released on CD, started to get played in bars and restaurants. Years later, when the concert-ban was on his height, Ferre-fans would proudly brag about the show, claiming that after years, the show is still in people minds, while Fally's show being in their eyes forgotten.
