Live Report: Inrocks Philips Festival @ Paris

This 27th edition of Les Inrocks Festival had a pretty solid line-up; among the headliners you could find artists such as Lykke Li, Damon Albarn, Baxter Bury or The Jesus and Mary Chains.

This year, French Culture and Music magazine Les Inrockuptibles – commonly shorten as Les Inrocks – teamed up with Philips to provide a new version of their yearly festival. This time, along the regular live shows, club nights have been added with acts such as Claptone, Cassius, Brodinksi… In addition, no more than two opening dates where thrown on November 11^th: In London, English folks were bouncing to French pop bands (Petit Fantôme, Isaac Delusion and Frànçois & the Atlas Mountains); whereas the French were under the spell of Nordic mysterious artists (Mancunian Oceaàn, Londoner Woman’s Hour and Swedish Lykke Li).

Going to Les Inrocks Fest is kind of a ritual for me. What I do love about this festival is the ability to discover promising acts. I was particularly excited to go this year because many of Stereofox featured artists were playing: Ibeyi, Seinabo Sey, Chet Faker, Glass Animals, Asgeir, Royal Blood…

So the Fox sneaked into La Cigale for two nights.

Day 1: Seinabo Sey, Glass Animals, Chet Faker, The Shoes (November 13^th)

The gig started at 7p.m. just in time for people to get out of work, and head to La Cigale. As I arrive, the venue is getting filled while Seinabo Sey is posing in front of the emblematic red-leather-padded doors. Few minutes later, the lights go off and Seinabo Sey’s voice rises out of the dark. She will play 7 tracks among which her latest singles (“Pistols at Dawn”, “Hard Time” and “Younger”) and possible extracts of her upcoming album (“Words”, “Poetic”). She seems to lack of self-assurance for her first Parisian gig; she appears quite shy and fixed faced to a crowd that is partly distracted. However she shows up her amazing vocal abilities and manages to charm a slowly growing crowd with her rhythm & blues infused soul.

The next set completely contrasts with the previous one. Glass Animals emerges from hazy jungle-ish sounds and Dave Baley is probably as excited as Seinabo Sey has been shy. They are obviously way more at ease than last time I saw them at Fnac Live Festival, where the heat had shorten their set due to melting gear. Tonight the band seems at home, Dave Bayle playing and frantically moving about in socks in front of his mother and a thousand-people venue. It a succession of Zaba’s hit that comes up to our ears (“Black Mambo”, “Gooey”, “Wala Wala”, “Cocoa Hooves”). The live version of songs brings in an electric atmosphere that makes them even more hypnotizing, and soon the crowd is following Dave on his frantic - and quite funny - dance move. We’re all tip-toeing on “Toes” and singing along Kanye West cover of “Love Lockdown”. The set ends up too soon on an upbeat version of “Pools”.

I smile because I want to. I smile because you want to.

Chet Faker succeeds to Glass Animals. After his enigmatic tweet earlier in the week, I confess I was afraid his set to be cancelled. Luckily for about 50% of the crowd who came to applause Chet Faker, it was not. Chet opens to “Blush”, and as soon as he gets up on stage the crowd cheers up. The mood is intimate and loving all along, every single boy and girl in here seems to have fallen for Chet. He is soon joined by his live band during “Cigarettes and Loneliness”. In spite of his obvious tiredness, he seems genuinely happy to be here, dancing and playing with the crowd on songs like “No Diggidy” or “Drop the Game”. The show raises its climax on “Talk is Cheap”, the closing song that is played in complete darkness, safe for the lamp over Chet’s synth. Some of his following shows have been cancelled due to health issue, nonetheless his voice has still been outstanding and I’m looking forward to see him at the Trianon for a longer set.

I’ve left after Chet Faker but from what I’ve heard many people have been disappointed by The Shoes’s set. The French band has been introducing his new live show and upcoming album, and apparently most people have been unsettled by its new direction. Rumour has it it’s going to be more techno-oriented, well let’s judge that when Chemicals will be out in 2015.

Day 2: Feu! Chatterton, The Acid, Nick Mulvey, Asgeir, Baxter Bury (November 15^th)

The venue is surprisingly already quite filled as I arrive around 6p.m. The night opens on Feu! Chatterton, a French band who has won the Jury Price at the Sosh x InrocksLab music contest. The band will performed 5 songs, each being an ode to the French language. Feu! Chatterton makes shoegaze/pop ballads that emphasize the poetry in our everyday life: “Côte Concorde”, for instance, is their personal tribute to the Costa Concordia who sunk ashore of Italy.

20 minutes later, ethereal beats come out of the dark (“Thumbing Lights”). A weirdly dressed Ry X (black cap over man bun, green bomber, black skinny jeans, white high socks and running shoes - someone should tell him 90’s revival is overrated) takes the stage with his band mates Steve Nalepa and Adam Freeland. The Acid disseminates black-magic music sustained by enigmatic visuals, and takes the crowd to another dimension. Their music brings out electro snippets and some people dance like they were in club (“Creeper”, ”Fame”) - I would have rather fit the Acid in the Club line-up as I don’t really understand the unity between the band and the following acts… However I guess the band wouldn’t have completely fit in the club line-up because of Ry X folk-injected vocals. Perhaps it would have been better to program them at the end of the night? Anyhow it was a nice discovery, and I think the band is much more interesting live – because of the visual dimension, than on record.

Nick Mulvey has been expected by a great deal of the crowd, but others are puzzled by the musical shift between him and the Acid. His voice and his guitar skills manage to please a partly distracted crowd, partly cheering crowd. Being surrounded by talkative/disrespectful people, I didn’t enjoy the show to its fullest and I’m quite amazed how many people attend gigs more to show up than to really listen to music…

Asgeir brings out the Icelandic charm to the venue and is warmly welcomed by the crowd. In the course of about ten songs he showcases extracts from his two studio albums, mixing English and Icelandic – proving in the mean time that this is really a harmonious language. It’s a pity he’s too shy to talk in between songs, because he has a strong aura on stage and most of the crowd really waited for him. A torrent of applauses break out of the crowd as Asgeir successively plays “Kings and Cross” and “Torrent”.

Baxter Dury was a real fun to catch live, the guy was seemingly stoned/drunk (or both?) and was talking nonsense in between songs with this characteristic British nonchalance. As the name of his latest studio album, It’s a Pleasure to discover the songs live. The crowd was cheering and dancing, harvesting rain-dropped mediators. I left before the end of his set because I was meeting someone outside, but I was really pleased by the 30min I caught up.

Special thanks to Polyka Srey for her kindness.
All photos have been made by Valentin Chemineau.