Fête de la Musique

“Fête:” Party
“Chanter” to sing
“Une Chanson:” a song

Every year in France, on the first day of summer (21st June), there is a huge music festival in every city called, “Fête de la Musique.” It does not matter what day of the week it falls on, or the weather circumstances; it will always be celebrated on the first day of summer. I’m not sure how this tradition started, but it now exists across the whole country. The idea is to celebrate summer by playing and enjoying music all of different genres. This year, the first day of summer happened to fall on a Monday, slightly unfortunate because I had to work the next day so could not stay out grooving all night long. However, I did get a couple of hours taste of the celebrations welcoming in the summer season.

At about 5pm, I could start hearing sounds off in the distance or instruments tuning, speakers being tested, and the carefree attitude of the night was already in the air. Ah, you have to love summertime. There we official lineups set up in the main squares of the town, also accompanied by informal groups set up in front off restaurants and cafés, parked in a corner playing whatever kind of music is theirs. I took a stroll through the main areas, first stopping for a few minutes to admire a blues/jazz group set up near the marché St. Pierre—a mix of old and young men with harmonica, drums, and brass to give the soothing element to the melody. Not but 10 feet away were another group of people literally shaking their booties to some funky tunes. I worked my way down the biggest square in town, Place Jaude, with the streets leading to it lined with vendors selling crepes, cotton candy, beer, and many other delights you could imagine. The first stop in Place Jaude was a turntable set up with two gigantic speakers on both sides, each adorned with a young lady dancing atop. After I could not handle the steady ear-ringing, techno “boom-boom,” I moved down the square to the main stage where I happened to catch the last few songs of a French rap act. While I do enjoy the occasional rap rhymes formed by some American “artists,” I cannot say these guys were really, “my cup ‘o tea.” I gave them a chance for a few songs, and then moved on.

Up the hill I walked to the second largest square, Place de la Victoire, where I found a big crowd surrounding a corner where noise was happening. The noise I found out was a head-banging, screaming-into-the-microphone, black-clad group of young men doing something very bad with what I consider as, “music.” An interesting sight, however, as people of the same genre formed a chain, arms spread over each other’s shoulders of head-banging. After awhile, I think you’d have to get a headache from doing this, “dancing.” On the main stage in Place de la Victoire, where I discovered a fabulous funk-hip hop group from Cincinnati. It was apparent from the few, “Mercis” that they did not speak much French, as well as the fact that all their songs were English. I enjoyed them very much, actually doing a little grooving and swaying myself. During the last song of their gig, they invited up some of the local break dancers who had been bustin’ a move in the front row—three of these boys, maybe 17 or 18 years old came up on stage dressed in the oh-so-not French young hipster baggy jeans and hoodies with flat-billed caps. When they finished up, I wandered over to a pub who had an Irish band tooting out some friendly melodies. About 15 people were in front doing some sort of line dancing that I did not know of, a mix of children, 20-somethings, and older. It was if they were some family-dancing group—quite entertaining to watch. Back in Place de la Victoire, a funk band from England was just revving up, their lead singer and curvy black woman with the greatest spirit you can ask for in a lead-singer. When she was not singing she was dancing all around the stage, she looked like she was having so much fun up there, I could not help but smile. The drummer and the guitar-player were accompanied by a line of additional musicians with a clarinet, saxophone, and trumpet. This was probably my favorite act of the whole evening.

Since it was a “school-night” (do we call that “work-night” now?) I had to head home before all of the festivities were over. On the way back, I caught the sounds of the a few bands along the way, some classic-rock covers and the like.

It was a really neat festival, that brought a lot of people out and about in Clermont. There is something about summer and music that just goes together so well.