Dear good people of France: Give singer Mike Patton a permanent residency at the most disreputable lounge in Paris, posthaste. Dressed like one of the lowliest hit men of the “Sopranos” crew, the former Faith No More and Mr. Bungle shredder brought a louche elegance to Serge Gainsbourg’s “Requiem pour un Con” at the Hollywood Bowl.
There was no shortage of singers pleased to slip into Gainsbourg’s white Repetto shoes at Sunday night’s Beck-produced Gainsbourg tribute, including his progeny, Lulu — but Patton, possessed of a slithery outlaw charm, was the evening’s breakaway lead. As the bass slinked around beatnik conga drums, he half spit and half savagely whispered in French his regards to life lived as a jerk. Occasionally he wriggled his eyebrows or widened his eyes, as if he’d just spotted a cold-blooded femme across the room.
With the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra conducted by Scott Dunn and Gainsbourg collaborator Jean-Claude Vannier and a crack live band reunited from Beck’s 2002 album, “Sea Change,” the true star of the evening was Gainsbourg’s towering songbook, a four-decade flirtation with every style of music that caught his eye — from chanson to ye-ye pop to Afro-Cuban jazz, American folk and reggae. A re-creation of the “Lolita”-like concept album written by Vannier and Gainsbourg, 1971’s “Histoire de Melody Nelson” was performed in its entirety for the evening’s sweeping finale.
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