He arrived on a golf cart, singing "Divine" with a team of back-up singers dressed like him, beard included. The performance of Sébastien Tellier, who was representing France at the Eurovision Song Contest 2008 in Serbia, had people talking. But he had planned something even bigger.
Tellier, who is in Australia for a series of concerts with his band Mind Gamers, revealed to SBS French that he was planning to cause a car crash, where he would have fallen off stage. But he had to change his mind last minute because the public was sitting too close to the stage and it would have been dangerous.
"I wanted to wreck the whole thing, scupper the show, but I didn't manage to do it," he says.
Tellier's madness
He recalls that the special atmosphere of Serbia, which still carries the traces of the war, had a weird effect on him.
"Over there, they have extremely powerful weed, even more than in California. I was walking around, fully crazy, high on weed. I was strolling in the ravaged streets and I was feeling the madness. I was crazy, actually."
Our interview with Sébastien Tellier (in French)
Sebastien Tellier in Australia
An imperfect man in a perfect world
He told us he went to the Eurovision Song Contest to have a good time, not to win. The organisation of the Eurovision, however, takes the competition very seriously. "These guys want to make sure everything looks good. The show costs millions in production so they want it to be perfect. I was totally imperfect in a world trying to be perfect."
Even though Tellier says he had fun, when he thinks about the car crash that could have been, he told us, pensive, that "it's a shame, it could have been beautiful, something that people would still look at today..."
Listen to the full interview with Sébastien Tellier (in French) by SBS Radio French below:
Share
