Arctic Monkeys + Keren Ann + Jim Jones Revue @ Rock en Seine, St Cloud, August 27 2011

Arctic Monkeys + Keren Ann + The Jim Jones Revue @ Rock en Seine

St Cloud, August 27 2011

The Jim Jones Revue

Second day at the Rock en Seine festival, 22 bands are playing today and there's nothing really interesting apart from a couple of bands so we get there very late just in time for The Jim Jones Revue on the 4th stage, the smallest one just by the main entrance.

Kickin' ass show

Lots of kids here waiting for the JJR hurricane, as soon as the band gets on stage the pit down the front is complete chaos, after just a couple of songs all the young girls are kicked out, they just couldn't cope with people pogoing , slamming and crowd surfing.

This band is just dynamite from start to finish, hard to believe with the music they're playing that they are attracting such a young audience or maybe the old geezers were standing in the back, we were first row headbanging like maniacs.
Great Set

Keren Ann

It was hard to get into Keren Ann a few minutes after seeing The Jim Jones Revue.
Complete different audience with people in their 30's.
She started the show with a couple of very slow tempo songs, not the best to start with.

There's a bit of everything with Keren Ann: Pop-Rock songs, a couple of acoustic-folk songs and some electro.

I'm just wondering what the electro shit is doing here.
Very cool and relax gig, she's singing in English which is a good thing.

Nice to rest our ears a bit after The Jim Jones Revue and before Arctic monkeys.

Death From Above 1979

Nothing to do for an hour, Death from Above 1979 was playing on the second stage but after one song that was enough too noisy for us, so we went to the Pictures exhibition with some nice portraits of different artists including Sonic Youth, Mike Watt, Lou Reed, Anna Calvi & Kurt Cobain.

Renaud Monfourny's pics of Kurt, Lou & Anna

Arctic Monkeys

All the girls are trying to get the best seat for Arctic Monkeys headlining the main stage.
We already saw them a couple of times this year @ L'Album de la Semaine for Canal+ on June 15 and @ Cigale ( click for review with video and lots of Pics) the day after.
At the time we were disappointed: they are playing such a great music but they seem so bored on stage it's unbelievable.

The singer has cut his hair and comb it like a 50's rocker and is wearing a leather jacket, funny how young he looks.
The sound is great and as usual they do have a powerful white lightning, we tried to get down the front but the pit was dangerous with so many people pushing their way down the front and after all the rain at the beginning of the afternoon the grass turned into very slippery mud. Hard not to fall down and getting trampled.

SETLIST Rock en Seine 2011
01) Library Pics
02) Brainstorm
03) This house is...
04) Still take you home
05) Don't sit down
06) Pretty visitors
07) She's thunderstorms
08) Teddy Picker
09) Crying Lightning
10) Brick by Brick
11) The Hellcat...
12) The view from the ...
13) I Bet you look good...
14) All my own stunts
15) If You were there
16) Do me a favour
17) When the sun...
-------
18) Suck it and see
19) Fluo Ado
20) 505

Ze pit & Pass sheet for the fest.

The singer seems to be in a very good mood as he introduced a couple of songs and said a few "Thank yous": a fucking miracle as he usually barely even look at the audience.
They even played a few seconds of a Chuck Berry song as a tribute to Alex's hair cut. This band has many great songs and they left their early english style for a more american heavy sound à la QOSTA for the best.
The set was short: 80 min but terrific.

Last song of the show

B.A.D. + General Elektriks + Foo Fighters @ Rock en Seine - St Cloud August 26 2011

B.A.D. (Big Audio Dynamite) + General Elektriks + Foo Fighters @ Rock en Seine
St Cloud August 26 2011

BAD featuring Mick Jones from The Clash

Too bad we've missed most of Big Audio Dymanite's show as we were @ The Kills on the main stage. Big Mistake they were boring.
We don't really know anything about B.A.D. as we're not fan of a mix of Punk-Dance-hip hop, reggae-funk. and ... we've never been fan of The Clash either.
Last time we saw Mick Jones was with Carbon/Silicon @ Trabendo and with Gorillaz for the Canal+'s Musicale in Nov 2010.

It's funny to see haw different is the audience from one stage to another and from one band to another.
The Rock en Seine is a posh rock festival with lots of teenagers most of them sexy girls all wearing Ray Bans and chain smoking as only frenchies can do.
BAD is playing on a smaller stage and it's far from being packed, lots of people in their forties in the audience with many English around me.

From what we saw, only 5 songs , they were great.
Lots of catchy and lively tunes, it feels like being in a football stadium singing along.
We recorded the last song of the set ( sorry no setlist) "Rush", they are much more rock than on cd.
We heard the original version of the song ( this morning) and it really sounds awful but as you can see (and hear) live it's rocking and really good.
Great set

General Elektriks

French Electro-Funk band General Elektrik is playing the second stage, we saw the first 20 min of their set. They're entertaining but the music tends to sound a bit the same so e left to get a good seat for Foo Fighters.

Merchandising & Audience

Dave Grohl's Foo Fighters

Different band, different stage and... different audience, now we have mainly much more male in their late twenties and lots of fat and greasy fuckers pushing like mads.
I guess we prefer to be surrounded by arrogant posh girls than by fat fuckers pogoing even between songs... anyway.

We have a long history with Dave Grohl @ Rockerparis: we saw Dave with Nirvana a long time ago, with Foo Fighters at the beginning of their carreer @ Bataclan and later @ Zénith in 2006, with Them Crooked Vultures @ Rock en Seine in August 2009 (check our review with Pics and videos), @ L'Album de la Semaine for Canal+ in Dec 2009 & @ Zénith in June 2010.

It's a pleasure to have Foo Fighters back specially with Pat Smear.
We haven't heard the new album and we were not fans of the previous one but we were expecting some heavy shit, the kind we don't get very often at Rock en Seine.
Unfortunately after 30 min we started getting really bored maybe was it because we were starting getting tired or I don't know.
Most of the songs sound the same with some heavy screamings by Dave.
Foo Fighters like Nirvana had pop songs played with wild and heavy guitars now there's no subtility in their music and it's boring.
What is for sure is that Dave Grohl is a great showman using every tricks in the book.
Nevertheless great "Young Man Blues"' cover.
1h55 min show, no encore.
A real let down for us but some people thought they were great.

Alison Mosshart was watching from the wings of the stage.

setlist (TBC)
Bridge Burning
Rope
The Pretender
My Hero
Learn to Fly
White Limo
Arlandria
Breakout
Cold Day in the Sun
Long Road to Ruin
Stacked Actors
Walk
Monkey Wrench
Let It Die
These Days
Best of You
Times Like These
Young Man Blues
(Mose Allison cover)
All My Life
Everlong

Herman Dune + C.S.S. + The Kills @ Rock en Seine, St Cloud, August 26 2011

Herman Dune + C.S.S. + The Kills @ Rock en Seine

St Cloud August 26 2011

Herman Dune

The bill for this Rock en Seine is far from being good, no more than 2 very good bands or major acts every day.
Today apart from Foo Fighters and The Kills there's nothing really worth standing in the rain all day.
Well I guess that Météo France should by new computers as it didn't rain for the whole day.
We arrived there just in time for Herman Dune.
We've missed Seasick Steve who was joined by Allison from The Kills ( click for video) It was probably good, we already saw him @ L'Album de la Semaine and Biffy Clyro.

Very good discovery with Herman Dune, just 3 guys but they had a wall of sound. Lots of mid-tempo and relax songs for some cool folk rock à la Neil Young.
Nice start.

CSS from Brasil

CSS is playing on the main stage, these girls from Brasil have already played @ Rock en Seine in 2007 and even though we're not fans of electro pop, we've always liked CSS live, they are very entertaining.

As you can see on the pics, their singer LOVE FOXXX is making the show with some crazy dancing and funny stage clothes, they've also played a couple of (more) heavy rock songs.
Once again they were very good, even Foo Fighters fans around us liked the show.

Setlist CSS, The Audience, Frederic Mitterrand

Frederic Mitterrand french minister for the Culture was there hanging out.

We stayed on the main stage to wait for The Kills, last time we saw them was a few months ago @ the hot & sweaty Bataclan and we were disappointed.
Will it be the same today ?

The Kills

Well... yes, first the sound was shit down the front and second they don't have real songs and it seems that they're playing on auto-pilot. The fact that they added two black girls on backing vocals for a few songs didn't change anything.
We used to like them... not anymore so we left before the end to go and see Mick Jones' Big Audio Dynamite.

Rock en Seine special merchandising

The end of "C'est Lenoir-Black Sessions" on France Inter

Sad news: it's official "C'est Lenoir" radio show is over on France Inter

No more Black Sessions.

"Salut à vous, Entre musique pas comme les autres et vie au grand air, j'ai enfin choisi. Merci pour ces longues années de complicité et de soutien indéfectible. Cela ne sera pas facile de vivre sans ce rendez-vous quotidien. Vous me manquerez. Caresse et bise à l'oeil Bernard Lenoir"

We've seen sooooo many bands there, including Arctic Monkeys, Divine Comedy, Anna Calvi and countless others....

Jerry Lee Lewis cancells Béthune rock show on August 27 2011

Jerry Lee Lewis' concert in Béthune on August 27 is cancelled

Source : L'avenir de L'Artois