Buzzin Pop Music

Rock En Seine Festival

So there we were sitting in the Buzzin Media office, wondering whether to spend the August Bank holiday stuck in a coast bound traffic jam or sitting in a crowded Carnival bound tube, when we were contacted by the very nice We Are Social girls Sarah, Camille and Sandrine and invited to the Rock En Seine festival in Paris.

Promoting the Little Break Big Difference Eurostar campaign they whisked myself and 10 other music bloggers off to the Rock En Seine festival, via first class Eurostar travel to Paris Gard du Nord – how civilised!  From there it is a short metro ride to the town of Boulogne where the festival is held in a very pretty national reserve park – Domain National de Saint-Cloud – on the banks of the Seine.

If like me you are mature (in body but not mind), still love music, partying, festivals etc but can’t really carry off the unwashed hair and panda eyed look anymore, then I highly recommend this festival as its bizarre location smack, bang in the middle of town, facilitates staying in a very comfortable hotel with clean toilets and comfy beds, while still being in walking distance of the venue.  Of course if you are so lashed you could sleep on a pile of rocks, they also have camping facilities on site.

The venue is compact enough to easily move between the 3 stages and not miss any of the acts, which was great as Friday night’s line up was rammed with my favourite pop acts. Passion Pit, Madness, Bloc Party, Vampire Weekend, Oasis….ahem! And although by no stretch of the imagination could it be called pop, jumping around to the techno thud of Vitalic was a great way to end the first night – along with copious amounts of champagne! But that’s another story…

Passion Pit performed on the Scène De L’Industrie, which was the smallest stage, making  it easy to just stretch out in the sun and listen to their  melodic, electro-pop tracks, although Sleepy Head almost tempted me to my feet!

Vampire Weekend playing on the Grande Scène, attracted a large audience but I still managed to easily get down the front and sing along with the quirky, ambiguous lyrics. Lead singer Ezra Koenig linked each song by conversing with the crowd in such perfect French that I could have sworn it was his native tongue and they finished with my favourite track, Oxford Coma.

Lee Thompson Of Madness Performing Baggy Trousers

My favourite act of the day had to be Madness.   I almost wished I had worn one of my old Rude Girl outfits to join in with the nutty dancing as I spotted several groups of die-hard fan in the crowd sporting Pork Pie hats.

I would defy anyone not to have a huge smile on their face while watching Madness perform, as Suggs’s wide boy charm and the general air of fun pervading from the group is very contagious.

The crowd (British and French) seemed to know all the lyrics to their old ska and pop songs like Our House, Baggy Trousers and Madness and loudly sang along with only a few minor lulls when the hits were interspersed with a few new tracks like NW5.

Oasis were fantastic…..no…wait…it was Madness performing a cracking second set  after being asked to stand in when the arrogant Manc twats had some kind of sibling altercation over who has the biggest monobrow and cancelled their performance 10 minutes before they were due on stage!

And so Oasis have split up….until their egos need re-stroking anyway!  – oh boo hoo!

So that was Friday over as we stumbled euphorically back to our comfy hotel for a few hours rest!