From late March to the end of April, Laurent Bánbrings his music to China with L'Envol: LB116 - Laurent Bán2025 China Tour, a personal concert series spanning multiple cities. During his Guangzhou stop on April 2 and 3, he celebrated his birthday on stage with fans, adding a special touch to the tour.
For Laurent Bán, L'Envol: LB116 is more than a musical showcase—it's a reflection of his artistic journey and personal growth.
In this Q&A, he shares the stories behind the tour, its significance to him, and his connection with the Chinese audience.
GDToday: What inspired you to create this concert?
Laurent Bán: First of all, it's a kind of joke I have with my (Chinese) fans. They call me "Old Flights" because my name sounds like "Lao Hang Ban" (which means "old flights" in Chinese). So, I thought of creating a show called L'Envol (meaning "take off" in French) based on my name, my nickname in China, and the number (116). The number comes from "Loloban" (another nickname in China) or "LLB," which looks like 116.
GDToday:I see you've made the stage look like an airplane cabin.
Laurent Bán: Yes. Everything is linked. Honestly, I try to think about every detail every time. It's like a journey—throughmy career, throughmy stories from my old musicals. That's why I recorded some messages at the beginning, like a captain of a flight. And also the form of the set. It's like a window of the airplane. Everything you see throughthis window is symbolic and linked to the meaning of each song.
GDToday: How do you choose your setlistfor the concert?
Laurent Bán: All the songs have real meaning for me—whether it's for my career, my life, or this journey, this flight. Notre-Dame de Paris was the first musical I played in Asia,andwe brought Le Petit Prince to Shanghai and other cities. Hamilton—You'll be back—I really love that song. It's also very symbolic, because it's about the moment when I was stuck at home. I tried to find ways to communicate with my Chinese fans, so I recorded some videos on Bilibili (a Chinese online video-sharing platform), and You'll be back was one of them. The meaning is perfect—I'll be back one day. Also, there are some songs from my album. I know many people know me throughmusicals. Sometimes they may not be ready to listen to my real music, my personal music. So I put some songs like Winter Stormat the start with the light, and La Lettreat the end with the light as well. Coming from the darkness and going back to the darkness. It's a kind of light journey.
GDToday: So when we experience this concert, we're experiencing your whole life together.
Laurent Bán: Yes. Honestly, I don't want to do a karaoke concert, where the songs are sung the way they are used to being performed by everyone. I always try to find a more personal link, creating my arrangements of the song. So I asked my friend, Christophe Houssin, to create arrangements that are closer to my personality. You can hear each song in a different way, with my interpretation of it. It's very important for me to create my own way to express these kinds of things.
GDToday: What do you want the audience to take away from this concert?
Laurent Bán: I want them to know me a little bit more beyond the roles I play on stage. When I play a role, I totally dedicate myself to bringing the character to life, so sometimes people think I am the character. They don't see the difference between me and the character. That's good for me, as it means the acting is good. But it's not the real me. It's just some parts of me. The same goes for every song in this concert. It's the same song you know, but throughthe filter of my personality, you can see a little bit more of myself throughthis song.
GDToday: Which song would you choose to represent yourself in this concert?
Laurent Bán:I couldn't choose any, because we are all complex beings. It's very difficult to pick just one. Honestly, this kind of "edited concert," with many different moods and songs from my past, is really like a puzzle of myself. Some people understand it, some don't, but that's what I like. It gives them the possibility to interpret it on their own, with their own personalities. That's nice.
Video | Pan Jiajun
Poster| Cai Junru
