he festival Francofolies is hosting many big names this year like Vanessa Paradis, Mika …
I went there on the 13th of July, the day before the national day in France. La Rochelle, home of the festival is a wonderful town. I’ve be
en there many times before and every time I come back it feels even better than the last time.
Les Wriggles , a band consisting of three “clowns”, opened the evening with some sort of comi-satiri
cal halfway serious and halfway infantile unplugged rocky tunes. They played parts of their new album: «Tant pis! Tant mieux!» which was very amusing and witty to watch and listen. Their theatrical approach to music made it quite interesting. In their songs, they comment current political issues and events in a quite unsettled, unpleasant and ironic manner. It kind of makes you remember that that is what rock is originally supposed to do.
The second part of the evening featured the breton band Matamatah wich is quite popular in this part of France. They were saying adieux to their fans after 13 years of rock. People sang along most of their tunes. The band played most of their last album «La cerise» before they took a bow for the last time together on the stage.
The third part of the evening was a tribute to the French cult disco singer of the seventies Claude «CloClo» François, famous for his pink outfits, glam-stile and ensemble of sexy dancers «Les Claudettes». One of the original dancers from 1978 was on the stage along with 3 other young ones. François is famous among else for being the author of Frank Sinatra’s «My Way» reference to which you’re going to find in the title of this blogg. The idea was to recreate the last concert of the artist in Lyon right before his tragic death in 1978. The list of the contemporary artists who participated was quite long. However, the concert in it self was not a success, and the male part of the audience booed the artists. But at the intro of CloClo’s last hit from 1978 «Alexandrie, Alexandra» they were as one united in motion and sound. It seems like this particular tune does not fail to mobilise sentiments in French audiences regardless of time, age or setting.
The last part of the evening was literally owned by Cristophe Maé, his guitar and harmonica. Most of the people were waiting for him. He plays some sort of accustic, unplugged soul inflated by reggaeish pop which really works like an emotional bomb, supported by a Jamaican percutionist and African background vocals. Mae is quite charismatic and energetic and has a lot of success and appeals most to the female fraction of audiences. He played several very amusing parodies on contemporary hiphop, rap and reggae, dance as well as the tunes from his «Mon Paradis» album. He came back twice, and stayed on stage having fun with his most faithful fans until very late enjoying every bit of it as much as they did. One of the great moments Maé created was when he invited the audience to show their lighted cell phones. He proved that he was definitely worth of waiting for. I bet that we will hear many good things from him in the future.
Unfortunately my takes from the concert weren’t good enough to be published here. That’s why I’ll link inn the videos from he official site (take a look at the sidebar on the left).
Relevant links:
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My way and and my highway 