Johnny Depp performed a concert in Paris Sunday, one day after Amber Heard made her red carpet return at a film festival in Italy.
Depp, 60, continued his tour with his Hollywood Vampires bandmates Alice Cooper and Joe Perry with a show at the Zénith Paris on Sunday.
The actor took center stage for a chunk of the setlist to be frontman for several songs, including lead vocals on a cover of David Bowie’s “Heroes.”
Depp worked the crowd by waving at fans, smiling and thanking them with a fist to his heart. He was also seen tossing guitar picks to the audience throughout the night.
PEOPLE spoke to several concertgoers Sunday, including Dan, 70, and Susanne, 43, from Paris. Susanne says she “came for Johnny,” and “the story of his private life didn’t interest me. … It’s over. He is an artist and that’s what I want to hear for myself.” Dan adds that he has “hope for a big return in films” for Depp.
Phoebe, 19, from Paris says she saw The Hollywood Vampires at Hellfest earlier in the month and that inspired her to see them live again. “I know him as a pirate in movies. I didn’t know he made such good music,” she says of Depp.
At one point during the concert, Depp honored late friend and collaborator Jeff Beck, who died in January. In the emotional moment, Depp explained why a white Stratocaster guitar stood centerstage on a riser unused for most of the night.
“We recently, all of us, lost a dear friend, Jeff Beck. Yesterday was his birthday. I would like to introduce you to one of his friends. His best friend — his Strat,” he said.
Lifting the guitar off its stand, he continued, “He would want his dear friend Joe Perry on this,” and handed the guitar to Perry, 72, who performed a medley of Link Wray’s “Rumble” (a song Depp and Beck played in concert) and “Beck’s Bolero.”
The day before Depp’s Paris concert, his ex-wife Heard, 37, attended the 69th Taormina Film Festival in Italy for the world premiere of her indie film In the Fire.
She was present for several of the festival’s events during the weekend, including her movie’s premiere, where she talked to PEOPLE about the film, which finished filming back in March 2022, months before the Virginia trial began.
“It’s a beautiful movie about the almost supernatural effect and force of love. It is about the boundaries that love can cross and its creation, and really about the overwhelming power that love has,” she said. “I don’t want to sound cheesy about it, but it’s a movie about love.”
Meanwhile, Depp’s French movie Jeanne Du Barry opened the Cannes Film Festival in May, where he signed autographs, got standing ovations, posed on the red carpet and spoke to reporters about whether the movie marked his comeback. As he puts it, he “never went anywhere.”
Jeanne Du Barry will also be screened at the Taormina Film Festival on June 30, though Depp, who plays King Louis XV in the film, isn’t expected to attend.
Depp and Heard reached a settlement in their defamation case in December. She paid him $1 million, which he said will go to five different charities.
Heard, who will also be in the Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom sequel in theaters this December, previously said of the settlement: “I have made no admission. This is not an act of concession. There are no restrictions or gags with respect to my voice moving forward.”
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