This year has been a good year for concerts. But during our French Indie Rock Special at The Record Club this week, I realised that perhaps the Essaie Pas concert at Villette Sonique in Paris in 2018 was my best live experience of the last ten years.
On record, Essaie Pas have found the perfect formula: dark electro, spoken word, lyrics in French that actually mean something. A unique combination that gives them a very special place in the Canadian and wider French indie rock scene.
They have released only a handful of albums together, both being extremely busy with music production and solo projects. But when they come together, wow. The best of both worlds.
And yet, nothing on their records could have fully prepared us for that concert.
One of the best concerts of my life.
Villette Sonique is a free festival in Paris, held in the Parc de la Villette, a former slaughterhouse district. For some strange reason, the organisers decided to place the Essaie Pas stage right underneath the Paris Périphérique, the massive eight-lane ring road surrounding the city.
Odd.
But ultimately, perfectly fitting.
Another anomaly: it was the middle of the afternoon, in full sunshine, at the beginning of summer. Hardly the ideal setting for music whose atmosphere, imagery and lyrics seem to belong exclusively to the night.
And to make matters worse, we arrived late and missed the beginning of the show, even though we knew it had the potential to be something special.
Not exactly the best conditions.
But what a punch in the face.
You may have experienced this yourself: your favourite band of all time turns out to be a massive disappointment live, while another band you like, but perhaps not quite as much, completely blows your mind.
Well, this was exactly that.
A blowing-your-fucking-mind experience.
First, the scenery turned out to be perfect. End-of-the-world music in an end-of-the-world landscape.
Second, the crowd was clearly possessed by the music. Arriving late, we almost felt like intruders. We were standing far from the stage, with no way of getting closer without disturbing people.
You could feel the electricity in the air. The passion. The fascination.
And we soon understood why.
Imagine New Order playing with the anger, the fury and the darkness of Joy Division, and you might get close to what happened that afternoon.
Punk music 2.0. Synth-pop at its absolute peak.
What could have been just another boring electronic DJ set had become an almost spiritual, trance-like experience.
Two people on stage. Together, but taking turns singing, moving around, inhabiting the stage, while the other kept pushing the buttons, the intensity and the volume higher and higher.
The best and loudest electronic live set of my life.
How can two people, without a drummer, without a bass player, without a guitarist, create such an extraordinary ROCK concert?
It’s just un-fucking-believable.
There was something almost supernatural about it. A moment of grace that is impossible to explain rationally.
Something happened that afternoon.
And fuck the sun.
Suddenly, darkness came to Paris.
And Paris has never been quite the same since.
Review by Laurent – Speaker at The Record Club and founder of concertandvinyl.com
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