Trains on the Brain Savour the journey & travel by train

This is the first part of a 3 part series reporting back from my trip to Paris.  You might recall that I was lucky enough to win this trip via a Eurostar competition on facebook and that I also couldn’t even give away the second place!

In this series I’ll be looking at the hotel I stayed in, the experience of travelling by Euorstar and my marathon treks on foot around Paris.  But first here’s a report on the Festival itself, just because I’ve already written it up for Eurostar and I’m feeling lazy after all that walking, OK?

First glimpse of Rock en Seine, Park St Cloud

My first festival in nearly a decade turned out to be a surprisingly civilised affair. Lots of space, some interesting sideshow tents, an impressive array of food options, friendly faces and of course a truly international line up of top notch bands, all set in a really attractive park complete with tree lined avenues, impressive sculptures, fountains and wooded borders.

Beautiful ornamental fountain, roped off for the event obviously

I arrived on Friday afternoon via a 30 minute metro journey (I’m far too old n grumpy to camp it up, opting instead for a cheap and cheerless hotel in the 9th arrondissement, more on that later) sadly missing Band of Horses but just in time to witness a solo set from Bloc Party’s newly raved-up frontman Kele, followed by Foals who despite looking young enough to get ID’d buying Tizer seem to share the former’s fixation with splenetic,  bass-driven early 80s pop of the Cure.

One new discovery for me was noirish French Canadian hip hop crew Beast, whose swampy, dragnet guitars and Portishead-esque female rapping brought back memories of triphop’s late 90s heyday. Whatever happened to the Sneaker Pimps anyway?

Less promising musical lowlights included King of Conspiracy whose almighty shouty din was less Rage Against the Machine, more Strop Against Mr Bean and the unbidden return of Skunk Anansie (are we in a student disco version of Doctor Who where the Timelord has cruelly dumped us in 1994 or what?)  I had the misfortune of catching the end of their set , in much the same way as you might catch Guinea Worm Infection, hearing Skin’s shrill shrieking reminiscent of wee Jimmy Krankie churned up in a Kenwood Smoothie Maker.

After demolishing possibly the world’s biggest sausage baguette, I took a stroll along the avenue of impressive band-inspired poster art.  This was one of the most impressive extra-curricular features of the festival. I could happily splurge all my pics of these here, but you can see more on my facebook page anyhow.

Poster art avenue Rock en Seine

Band of Horses poster

Before long I rejoined the fray in time for the Kooks and a bit of their rather apt ‘Ooh La’ action.  As spirited as their well-groomed tunes were there was little they could do to stem the inevitable tide of people streaming towards old-time stoner rappers Cypress Hill come 8pm. Well, you can’t come to Rock En Seine by train and miss Insane in the Brain now can you?

Somewhat depressingly, the biggest cheer of their set was reserved not for this irresistible old school classic but for the moment when one of their number ceremoniously sparked up the most enormous bifter much to the crowd’s obvious delight. This band seem to have made a career out of their doped up lifestyle, so much so that I wondered if they’ve had one too many ‘Hits from the Bong’ when they unveiled a new number in which they appeared to be rapping over a slushy Gloria Estafan ballad.

The occasional short shower gave me ideal excuses to loiter in a few of the sideshow tents. One, sponsored by Converse, let punters fiddle with samplers on headphones and customise their own trainers.  I couldn’t hear much of anything on mine and was promptly told off for leaving my beaker of Ice Tea too close to the wired stuff.  See kids, who says I’m not rock n roll anyway?

Converse sampling tent, before the soft drink police descended

Another tent energetically showcased a dancing game on the new Xbox Kinect system, while another somewhat bewilderingly featured an onion headed man greeting visitors, while an overexcited Frenchman toasted at incredible speed over a selection of bleeps and beats in the background.  I think it may have had something to do with the French Police, but if anyone would like to fill me in that would be great. The acronym de plume was SAM.

Monsieur Onion Head

I returned on Sunday after an exhausting but edifying day of city exploring to watch Aussie indie rockers the Temper Trap who opened the day’s bill. Their ‘Sweet Disposition’, with its tantalisingly long intro and note perfect falsetto was definitely a personal highlight. Complete non-sequitur this, but as I witnessed the extraordinary vocal acrobatics of Indonesian singer Dougy Mandagi it struck me how rare it is to see someone ethnically oriental heading up a  rock band.  Can you think of any others?

Temper Trap kick up an almighty sonic ruckus

Later came eels with enigmatic frontman E  looking like the Invisible Man’s badass backwoods brother dressed in a white shirt, shades, bandana and that increasingly untamed beard. His bandmates are equally facially hirsute.  I confess to being a little disappointed by their set, it being the one I was most looking forward to. It was quite relentlessly uptempo, with only the lovely ‘That Look You Give That Guy’ delivering a rare moment of tender introspection. I realise it was  a festival set and ok, fair enough to include a surf rock version of ‘Summertime’, but was the throwaway thrash punk cover of ‘Summer in the City’ really necessary too in the confines a 40 minute set?  E interacted well though, with a great, showbizzy ‘introducing the band’ segment, paying tribute to his brilliantly monikered bandmates, bassist Koool G Murder and drummer Knuckles.

eels slither into view on the silver screen

Then for that most European sounding American band, somewhat confusingly named after a city in the Middle East: Beirut. Multi talented, babyfaced bandleader Zach Condon flaunted a louche sophistication well beyond his  years, not only delivering a storming set of brassy tunes that would sound perfectly at home in a smoky Pigalle cellar bar, Berlin beirkeller or Balkan bordello, but also impressively addressing the audience almost entirely in French. His voice, though utterly unique, calls Neil Hannon of the Divine Comedy to mind and occasionally evoked the ghost of the late, great Billy Mackenzie of the Associates.  ‘Nantes’ was a highlight, as was their instrumental set closer which hovered over that little trod ground between funeral march and carnival number.

Beirut bandmaster blows his own trumpet

Some things at festivals don’t change – the drink options were severely limited. Heineken and Desperadoes lime beer everywhere but of spirits – not a drop to drink, and just one small, packed to the rafters tent selling wine…we are in France aren’t we? Zut Alhors!

Instead I drank a refreshing cup of Cold Mint Tea ( I told you I was rock n roll didn’t I?) as I sat on the grass and skanked gently to the easygoing, polished reggae of kiwis Fat Freddy’s Drop, but soon Fat Joolsy was ready to drop too and I bade a fond adieu to this fantastic little festival, which before too long will hopefully become famous for more than just being the venue of Oasis‘ long-overdue combustion last year.

The closest thing to Absinthe at Rock en Seine: Cold Mint Tea!

Yes, yes so I missed Roxy Music, Arcade Fire and Massive Attack, so what of it?  I was in Paris for chrissake, one of the world’s most spellbinding and diverse cities.  I’m not going to miss that am I?  More on that soon…

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