Pascal Obispo suspects nothing. It was 8:50 p.m. when he entered the set of Studio 130 (Saint-Denis) and sat down at the piano to perform two live songs for, he was told, the pilot of a new show. A few notes resonate when Zazie suddenly enters. “Things are not going to happen like Nagui told you,” she warns him. Tonight, we celebrate your thirty years of career.” Obviously surprised, Pascal Obispo spontaneously joined her on stage when she sang Zen, which she co-wrote with the 58-year-old singer-songwriter. For almost two hours, his repertoire as well as the songs he has written for other artists will be in the spotlight. Cali, Bénabar, Nolwenn Leroy, Santa, Natasha St-Pier, Anne Sila, Élodie Frégé, Axel Bauer… Throughout this evening without a host, the guests pass the baton to perform a song with Pascal Obispo. Even his mother surprises him by appearing at the end of Vintage which he has just sung in a duet with Patrick Bruel. Without forgetting the arrival of Florent Pagny who appears when the celebrated artist has just finished the first verse of Know how to love.
As for a friend
But how did this secret anniversary come about? What is behind the scenes? “We did exactly as if we were organizing a friend’s surprise birthday,” summarizes Emmanuel Virot, producer with Nagui for Banijay Production Media. Already, to ensure Pascal Obispo’s presence on D-Day, the two men went to see him last June to find out if he would agree to participate in a sort of American-style talk show that the host of “Taratata” wanted to launch. “We told him that we wanted him to be the godfather of the show, that he would have to answer an interview and then play live. He validated. So, we warned him that we were going to book his musicians for the live tracks. So he’s not surprised to see them when he arrives.”
For the future, everything was planned so that as few people as possible knew about it in order to avoid possible blunders. “95% of us spoke to the artists directly, and not with managers, press officers, or agents,” he remembers. They all had fun putting “private” for the big day in their Google calendar. I know that there are press officers who called saying: “but you have something there, we don’t know what it is”. They replied: “no I can’t, that day, don’t bother me, I’m taken.” They all played the game.” Obviously, the closer the day of filming approaches, the more the number of those in the know increases. “We worked for a long time with the code name “Secret Birthday”, without explaining to the technical people what it was going to be. Then afterwards, we made people sign confidentiality agreements. We were a very small group inside the production who really knew what was going on.”
A real fake pilot
As for the public, they think they have come to see a new variety show around French song with around fifteen artists. The latter rehearse the same day, except Florent Pagny, whose arrival almost everyone is unaware of. Even on the filming sheet, it is indicated that Pascal Obispo will perform alone Know how to love. “He immediately agreed to participate in this anniversary and then he conditioned this on his form at the time when the program would be recorded,” indicates Emmanuel Virot. He confirmed to me that he would come three days before the shoot. He arrived five minutes before singing. He got out of the car, we put on a little makeup and he went on stage.”
Nagui, who at the start of the evening went to pick up Pascal Obispo from his home and interviewed him on the way to the studio for his real fake pilot, only appeared at the end of the show. “So it seems it went better without me,” he joked.
Currently, Pascal Obispo is on tour to celebrate his 30th career.