Johnny Hallyday, The French Elvis?

Last night we ventured out to some local bars. We began at a Spanish bar we had been to before, and while we were walking in a drunk old man was being escorted out. As we took our seats at the bar, a young bartender was scolded by the bar owner who had been the one to escort the man out. Apparently the girl overserved him. She brushed it off and took our orders.

After a couple of glasses of wine and a lot of free peanuts, we mosied over to a bar nearer to our apartment. It looked closed because the lights were nearly all off, but the door was open, so we went in. Some sort of French rock n roll music was blaring and the female bartender and two patrons were passionately jamming in the dark. After she took our order, she handed us the CD compilation case and asked if we knew Johnny Hallyday, France's equivalent to Elvis, she said. She was shocked that I had not heard of him, so in order to educate us, she and her two guests argued about which songs they should play for us that would best encompass this remarkable music and played bits of their top choices. It was alright, although he sounded more like Bruce Springsteen than Elvis.

We left after one drink, not because the ambiance wasn't amusing, but because it was getting kind of late. They turned the music up a little more after we walked out they door and were surely pleased they had potentially turned a couple of Americans into Johnny Hallyday fans.