Live à Bercy is the second live album by Mylène Farmer, released on 21 May 1997. It was also produced as a video.
Background
After the successful concerts tour of 1996, whose shows were spread out from 25 May to 15 December, a live album was recorded and produced by Thierry Suc, and sponsored by NRJ. It was remixed in studio to give it a better sound. The re-orchestrations, composed by Laurent Boutonnat, were very dynamic with very rock sonorities. The photos illustrating the booklet were realized by Claude Gassian. The track listing contains songs from the four studio albums of Farmer, but Anamorphosée was sharply privileged, because all its songs were included on the album, except "Eaunanisme". This live was released on 21 May 1997. In May, a musical video of the concert was also realized, first as a VHS. For the first time, François Hans participated in the shooting of a live. As for the previous live album En concert, several scenes were re-filmed without the audience. The live video contains nevertheless numerous errors of editing, because it was compiled from four shows: three at Bercy and another in Geneva. It contains besides a making of and new images. Two years later, in May 1999, the video was released as a DVD, which constituted moreover the first DVD of the singer. However, it doesn't contain the bonuses available on the cassette. The DVD was dedicated to the singer's brother, Jean-Loup Gautier, died on 26 October 1996 after a road accident.
Critical reception
Generally well received by media, the album was nevertheless criticized for having been too much remixed in studio. For example, the journalist Caroline Bee declared: "Everything is emphasized: Mylène's voice, the shouts of the public, Abraham Laboriel's powerful drum, the bass and both guitars, impeccable. All that gives a perfect whole, without dissonance, but which sounds more as an album studio than as a real transcription of concert".
Commercial performance
In France, the album debuted at number 3 on French Album Chart, on 24 May 1997. It then reached its peak position, #2, for two consecutive weeks, and for two other weeks two months later. Andrea Bocelli's Romanza, then Era's eponymous album made it unable to reach number one. It remained for 18 weeks in the top ten, and dropped until #36 on 8 November, but managed to re-entered the top 20 the week after and there stayed for nine weeks. It almost kept on dropping the months after and left the chart after its 44th week of attendance, on 28 March 1998. Three days before, the album achieved Double platinum status by the SNEP, the French certifier, for a minimum of 600,000 copies sold. The video, both the VHS and the DVD, reached the first position on the French Videos Chart. They were both certified Diamond videos on 24 October 2001, for more than 100,000 sold copies. In Belgium Wallonia, the album went straight to number 4 on 7 June 1997 and then peaked at #2 for 12 consecutive weeks. After 18 weeks in the top ten, the album slowly dropped the four following months and disappeared from the chart on 31 March 1998, after 35 weeks of attendance.
