Eurockennes - Part One

So here I was, far, far away in the Eastern region of France.

In this un-commercial area lies the sleepy, rustic ‘city’ of Belfort, set around a luscious and beautiful scenery of peninsula, mountains, an old medieval town and crumbling, decrepit market squares. In it’s twentieth year, the festival is part funded by the French government. With a mixed vibe, a great and varied line-up and reported good weather, I looked forward to seeing if the festival was up to its name as ‘The French Glasto’ and whether the beautiful, natural surroundings would ‘win me over’.

Set in-front of the peninsula lined by thick forest, I converged onto the Chapiteau stage to witness Cat Power, a fairly inland stage, and to be honest, was rather bored of the lagging set and boredom-soaked presence. After catching Cadence Weapon unleash his geeky, distorted banter onto the crowd (through rather distorted speakers), we shot through to the main stage to catch one of the weekends highlights, Massive Attack. As awe-inspiring as it was to watch them perform classics such as ‘Teardrop’ and ‘Angel’, the sound was of a poor, under whelming quality. It was weak and lacked the full on sub assault that’s made them so irresistible. The expected chest-rattling frequencies were reduced to mid range, the performance rendered flat because of it.

Day 2 was a fuller affair, and with an early start, I endeavored to make a serious dent in France’s premier festival. After chilling to bare foot one-man band hippy Xavier Rudd, to a backdrop of people speed boating on the lake, I then caught Tunng playing an almighty set. The sound was loud, despite a small turn out at first, the crowd filled when the hand clapping, light rhythms and psychedelic guitar of ‘take take take’. After walking through the baked festival, I caught direct Kasbian rip-offs Love Motel, who sounded bland and overly pastiched, which abruptly led me to witness Vampire Weekend prove that they were worth their afrobeat-inspired salt to a curious French crowd. Subduing myself with Midnight Juggernauts weird goth pop, new wave aesthetics and dark 80’s romanticism, it was off to what inevitably became my favourite stage, club Deville.

Set out like a small stage, and curiously placed near the front entrance (which was nice for those just arriving), the gem of the stage was the benches, curved around in an auditorium-meets-American high school playing field hybrid, stacked 15 rows high and looking like real viewing-stalls. From here I watched new hip hop sensations Cool Kids make the entire bench bounce with treacly, sloppy synths and heavy, pounding bass with tune ‘black mags’. ‘We’re the black version of the Beastie Boys!’ they proclaimed, and with the entire area bumping and styling, you could see their judgment was pretty accurate. It was an exceptional experience that made you forget you were at a festival.

As a whole, I spent a lot of time at Deville chilling in the stalls; besides, before I'd ventured down I witnessed the full carnage of a sepultura reunion with Cavelera Conspiracy, a re-unification of the brothers Cavelera who made sepultura one of the greatest and most defiant metal bands ever. I don’t even think they played any new material, it was jut a 90-minute set of brutal thrash classics, such as ‘Refuse/Resist’, Chaos AD, Roots and even wasting away, a nailbomb track. Track after track, it was violent, sweaty and heady, and was loads of charged fun. On my way home, I became lost in the trees and subdued by the undisturbed darkness. I eventually found a road with weary revelers trudging up. The woman with her croissants suddenly showed up again, pleading with me to buy her wares. I knew I was going the right way home.

Click here for Part Two!