MuZicosDay…
Tomorrow is the Fête de la Musique that anywhere in the world is supposed to be known as World Music Day… A Frenchy creation, one of those rare creations in the music field that we should be proud of!! We should but man we so turned down the spirit of this day… On Music Day, merguez sausage and beer will invade the streets, not that I have something against that but sometimes that stinks so much that you can get food poisoning just with the smell. There will be a wild crowd out there! And there will be music too… A little bit of music, a lot of music, too much music…
The Fête de la Musique in Paris is the best way to hate music for the rest of the year!! Except when you get trapped by the magic of an amateur sitting there with a guitar or a glass harmonica… This person that makes you wanna stop following the endlessly walking crowd…
The Fête de la Musique in Montpellier is the best way to find out that downtown Montpellier is just like a huge sound box with a lot of echo and reverb! But man I had a lot of fun there on june 21 2004 …
The Fête de la Musique in Lyon is the best way to find out that this city is actually haunted by a sort of punk’n'roll spirit! June 21 2006 was kind of fun there with friends of the Lyon period of my life…
Best souvenir of the Fête de la Musique: 199x… Dammit, I don’t even remember the year! Give me back my neurons!! Well, in 199x I lived my best Music Day ever…
199x… Place de la République in Paris…
8.00 pm… The French Band Les Négresses Vertes is on stage… I was not a fan of their music but on stage, that was the bomb! Huge sound and attitude! But I wasn’t there for them…
10.00 pm… I’m getting ready… Tonight I’m finally going to see Mr Dynamite… The hardest working man in show business… Mr Jaaaaaames Brown! Yeah dude… There was a time when you could attend a free James Brown gig for the Fête de la Musique in Paris!! That was funky… Screaming horns… Hot backing vocals… A crowd moving to the groove and the syncopated beat of the Father of Funk. James Brown enters the stage after a long introduction by Danny Ray, the master of ceremony!! Dammit, I can’t believe it… I am seeing James Brown, here, Place de la République… “‘Dude… You’ve never been to a concert before!”. The groove is tight, intense, syncopated… If you don’t move your pinky at least, that can only mean that you’re dead!!
Worst souvenir of the Fête de la Musique: 199x… Bummer, this gig is also my worst souvenir of Music Day. Back in those days, June 21 was still a sunny day… And I remember that this one was hot too! A lot of people fainted that day… Actually I was trying to count the number of evacuations until I lost the count. The crowd was not only moving to the beat of Les Négresses Vertes and James Brown… No, no! The crowd was helped by a bunch of rebel stupid kids who discovered how to use teargas on that particular day!! Crowd surfing and crying eyes!!
Luckily the funk didn’t let us down… Not like the tube company that took maybe 5 more years to finally understand that on this particular night, it would be great to have public transport overnight!! One hour and a half walking in the streets of Paris by night and its suburbs to go back home… I met a lot of drunk zombies that night, a lot of bitchy mini-skirted gals and a lot of sharp-eyed police officers! That’s quite hard to take after a 4 hours concert, 123 crushes and 18 teargas clouds… But damn, that night I saw James Brown, and that I’ll never forget!!
And, what about your Music Day, if it is something usual in your town? Tell me more about it, I wanna know!
Salut mon pote,
c’est malheureux mais je m’aligne 100% sur ton jugement. Moi qui ne vis que pour la musique, j’ai toujours trouvé que la “fête de la musique” (en tout cas à paris) c’est l’occasion pour tout ceux qui joue mal de faire chier le reste de la population ou pire, l’occasion de voir dans la rue ceux que tu vois dans le métro habituellement. Quand aux grands podium sponsorisé par “radio machin” à l’exception de certaines affiches exceptionnelles (comme JB à la répu) c’est en générale plutot obispo, mahé et con – sort.
Bref pour la fête de la musique je reste chez moi et je me regarde un DVD de clapton/Winwood ou de Jeff Beck.
Penta
Et oui… Malgré tout je me fais piéger encore et toujours, et le 21 je vais toujours faire un petit tour. De plus en plus localisé le tour, je reste dans mon quartier et cette année n’a pas dérogé… Pas grand chose de jouissif en dehors d’un petit power trio hendrixien en diable et d’une petite formation de musique afro-funk-folk avec un chanteur burkinabe plutôt pas mal et un batteur méga-funky… Mais sinon, rien de bien fantastique… Malheureusement!