Les Nuits Sonores is a 5-day long electronic music/contemporary art festival in Lyon, France. There are several different events that span across each day and night of the 5 days, with the biggest events happening Wednesday, Friday and Saturday night. Les Nuits Sonores was rated the #3 festival in May by Resident Advisor. Living in Lyon for the past 8 months and there being very few events (that I would always miss for some reason or another), I was quite excited about this one.
Night 1
Room 1:
Onur Ozer
Cobblestone Jazz
Underworld
Fairmont
Room 3: Rex Club 20th anniversary room
Mlle Caro
Barbara et John Thomas
Scan X
Jeff Mills
There were other DJs, but I only listed the DJs I saw and liked.
First of all, the venue was ing wicked. It was in an abandoned factory that is to be demolished in 2 months. When we entered, there was an esplanade with a stage, and 3-4 different buildings (some quite large), each with their own seperate stages. The main room was quite large with low ceilings. It gave it an old school rave type feel. Room 3 was pretty cool too. It had higher ceilings and was smaller, but they had a cool lighting system going on with lights behind white curtains on the walls, making the walls change colours.
We got in at around 11:30, and was surprised to see that there weren't that many people there yet considering Underworld was supposed to start at 12:00. However, once they came on, I guess everyone from all the other stages came and filled up Room 1 pretty nicely.
Underworld was the main reason why I went to this party because they cancelled at I Love Techno back in November which was pretty dissapointing. Underworld has produced so many classic tracks that we all know, everyone says such great things about them, and there are so many people who haven't seen them that would love to. Therefore, I was pretty excited...but to be honest they didn't really do it for me at all.
I think the problem started with their timeslot. They were originally supposed to play at 2h00, but ended up playing at 0h00. The party clearly hadn't started yet, and although there were lots of people enjoying their sets, it was still aperetif hour, and lots of people were just standing around and talking. This is not the right environment for Underworld.
Their set to me wasn't all that great either. Sure it was nice to hear them play the classics, but most of their songs sounded pretty similar. Also, there was some horrible attempts at lip synching going on. I could only stand about an hour and fifteen minutes of this before I had to leave. I would have left much earlier had it been anyone else, but I thought I might as well stay for as long as possible. At least I can now say that I've seen Underworld I guess?
I made my way over to Room 3 where I pretty much spent the rest of my night (possibly something to do with it being a Rex Club 20yr anniversary theme?). The music in there was spot on all night. Mlle Caro and Barbara/John Thomas all warmed up the room quite nicely with some great tech house, and even better technical skills.
Next was Scan X who played an amazing live set. I can't remember where I've heard this guy's name before (possibly at DEMF last year), but WOW did this guy ever impress me. His popularity was shown by the hordes of people that packed the room to the rafters to see him. He was only playing for an hour so he wasted no time at getting started. He picked up the BPMs noticeably from the last 2 DJs at the start of his set. The crowd answered by picking up the energy considerably. Scan X played a great, banging techno set with lots of big builds, and cool effects to get the party into high gear. I don't remember recognizing a single track. By the end, I was literally bouncing out of Room 3 into Room 1 to check out Cobblestone Jazz and Oner Ozur. I have never been a fan of short sets, but I can now see the appeal in a 1 hour balls to the wall techno set, playing at 100% insanity for the entire time.
I only caught a few minutes of Cobblestone Jazz, but I think they would have been better at the beginning of the night like they were orignally supposed to play. What they were playing I can only describe as “jazzy minimal” which was a bit too toned down for me after the techno beatdown I just received in Room 3. After Cobblestone Jazz was Oner Ozur who was playing quite well. I've heard this guy's name quite a few times before but don't recall ever hearing any sets from him. I didn't check him out for that long though because I wanted to check out Jeff Mills.
Before Les Nuits Sonores, I had only seen Jeff Mills once before. He played the closing slot in the bowl at DEMF last year, and it was the general consensus that he stank it up (which is an unforgivable offense when you're playing the headlining slot of the last day of a festival). However, given how revered this guy is around the world, and the kind of reputation he has, I was definitely willing to give him another chance and was actually quite excited to do so. He was playing a 3am-6am set in Room 3 which I thought was quite a treat to be hearing someone like Jeff Mills play a set that long at a festival. All I can say is: WOOOOW. This guy has to be the best technical DJ I've ever seen. I now know why people call him “The Wizard”. What this guy was doing on the turntables and mixer was just not human. Three tracks going at the same time, while sampling, while EQing the crowd into a crazed frenzy had my jaw on the floor for almost the entire time he was playing. During 4h30-5h00 he played some deep house which was a little bit weird to me at the time, but by the end of the set it made sense. He wanted to give us a bit of a break before he completely annihilated us in the last hour of his set, where I was laughing in disbelief at what I was hearing for almost that entire hour. In the last 20 minutes or so, he would suddenly turn the sound off, and then suddenly turn it back on again. When he turned it back on again, the suddeness and severety of the reaction from the crowd was much like being right beside a cannon being fired.
Sure there were some parts in his set that were a little boring (as there should be in a 3 hour set), and sure he started trainwrecking often enough (which can be expected considering what he was doing. He would always correct it with expert precision after 1 or 2 beats anyway), but I haven't heard a proper banging techno set that I've liked in years. I thought I was over techno like that, but Jeff Mills showed me otherwise.
After this party I really wish I had checked out Rex Club while in France, but I guess you can't make it to everything...
Day 2: Body & Soul All Day Long on the Rhone River (Joe Claussel, Danny Krivit and Francois K b2b2b for 8 hours)
This was actually the event I was most highly anticipating in Les Nuits Sonores. I've always wanted to go to a deep house party outside during the day, under the sun. Who better to see than these 3?
The party started at 3pm, but we couldn't really organize ourselves to get going due to being destroyed from the night before (last call at 5am is deadly). We finally dragged ourselves there and arrived around 6pm.
The venue is pretty hard to describe. It's called “La Piscine du Rhone”- the Pool on the Rhone River. You walk in and there is a bar, and on the outside there is a large patio with an awning over it, and stairs going down on each side. This patio area was used for the dancefloor area.
(good example at the beginning)
You can then walk down the stairs where there is a huge area where people were just chilling, and dancing. It is also right on the Rhone River, with the magestic Basilique Fouviere, giving it an amazing backdrop, especially at night when all the buildings lit up.
Before even entering the venue, I knew that Joe Claussel was on because I could hear him EQing and the crowd cheering from blocks away. Once we entered the venue, I wished I had got there a bit sooner because the party was in full gear already. The beginning of this video is pretty much the madness we were greated with.
Basically how the three played was Francois K would get the crowd going with some more groovy, driving/progressive stuff, then Joe Claussel and throw the party into madness mode with chunkier, heavier stuff, and his signature EQing moves as you saw in the above video. Then Danny Krivit would come on and play significantly more chill stuff to give the crowd a break, so that everyone could recover from the explosive atmosphere that Claussel just created. (Bear in mind that they were all playing really deep house, so when I saw chunky and heavier, there were still lots of vocals, funk and disco elements.)
This technique worked very well, and created an incredible atmosphere. An example of this was one of the highlights of the day for me, where Claussel played this track:
which is a classic deep house tune, although I don't know the name. The crowd went absolutely crazy for that, then Krivit comes on and drops ing Bob Marley – Could You Be Loved while the sun was starting to set, on a 25 degree day with not a cloud in the sky, people (French people mind you), SCREAMING out the lyrics, dancing and laughing. Wow.
The three played everything from garage, to post-disco house, and just straight up disco. It sounded like all of their records must have been at least 15 years old. Given the fact that all I've been hearing for the past year is techno, even though I love it, this was a really nice change. It had been quite a while since I had been to a deep house party.
The reason why I thought a deep house party outdoors would be amazing is because of the vibe at deep house parties. Everyone is always smiling, bouncing around, and it just looks like everyone is having a great time. I thought this kind of music and environment would be best suited for an outdoor party in the summer, and I think I was right. Before this party, I liked deep house mostly at home, and in a club but only if it was harder stuff ala DJ Heather. I was actually kind of worried that I wouldn't like these guys as they can get really disco and deep at times, but after experiencing the vibe at this party, I really understand what the big deal is now. I really wish that there were more outdoor deep house parties, but I think they are pretty rare every where. I definitely want to make it to the Body & Soul outdoor in NYC one of these years after this...
ps. My friends and I were probably at least 10 years younger than 95% of the people there, and I was getting some funny looks when I was singing along to the songs that they were probably wondering how I knew, hahaha.
The rest of the festival...
There were lots of other parties that were going on that I didn't make it to, such as a 9hr back2back Laurent Garnier vs. Agoria party on Friday (which I heard was absolutely incredible. They sold out which is quite the ing accomplishment for the venue that they had), and Roy Ayers, Dennis Ferrer, DJ Krush and DJ Food on Saturday.
On Thursday night there were several free parties going on. I decided to go to the one with Joris Voorn and Len Faki in this pseudo-garden type venue. Really hard to explain what it was like since I've never been to a venue like that before. Joris Voorn didn't really do it for me at all and neither did the party. I don't know whether this had to do with the quality of the party and DJ, or because I had just been to that jaw-dropping Body & Soul party before, or if it was because I was tired after all the partying I had done in the last 24 hours lol. I stayed for all of Joris Voorn's set and decided to leave. I couldn't stay for Len Faki.
On Saturday there were 2 free street parties, one of which was downtown which had some amazing Djs...
...but due to being on cramped French streets, we decided to go to the other one.
The 2nd one was on the Quai of the Rhone river, and probably had about 2,500-3,500 people at peak time going nuts. It was a really amazing atmosphere and venue for the party, and even though the music was extremely cheesy, I decided to ignore my inner-snob and just enjoy myself.
On Sunday there was another free party in a really nice garden/park in the old city beside an ancient Roman amphitheater. It was a really nice way to end the festivities.
To be honest, I wasn't really expecting too much from this festival, but I was extremely impressed. There were a wide variety of events, music and venues. They had things from warehouse parties, to free street parties, to music conferences, DJ tutorials, birthday party themed techno parties complete with balloons and birthday hats, iPod dance parties, movies, and much more. It was very creative and well done. It was way beyond just a couple of big parties with big DJs. Also, I was very impressed by the local talent of not only France in general, but also Lyon. Considering how small the regular scene is here, it was quite surprising how many really good DJs I heard that were Lyonnais. I really wish I had gone out to one of the local nights this year!
If anyone is every in France at this time of the year, this festival is highly recommended!
patpicos
kickass review as always!
are you working in europe or using saved up money? sounds like a sick trip overall
The black guy in those vids is awesome! he needs to come to canada and play with the OM crew or something :)
Yohan
White font? Surely this can't be Graham! :p
Another good read Graham.
You are making a lot of us really, REALLY jealous :p
Espresso
Nice detailed and precise white review!
It's unfortunate that you caught Underworld in that kind of a situation, when I saw them back in KH they killed it and the crowd was just surreal that night.
but glad you can experience those nice street parties, something that goes under the Cons column of Toronto. :)
Orko
Underworld lip-syncing? In all the live videos I have watched of them, I have never seen them do that.
Too bad the show wasn't that good. From their Fuji Rock DVD, their performances look like madness.
True they have changed their style up a bit in recent years, and gone more 'minimal', because they started to incorporate more of other people's music.
musicsnob_NOT
Glad you had a great time...
See you at Awakenings!!!
The Highroller
quote:
Originally posted by devnull
The black guy in those vids is awesome! he needs to come to canada and play with the OM crew or something :)
That's Joachim "Joe" Claussel. He played at an outdoor venue on the waterfront in the summer of 2006. I can't remember what it was called. I think Sunnyside Pavilion. What a fun party that was!
dEsidEL
quote:
Originally posted by The Highroller
That's Joachim "Joe" Claussel. He played at an outdoor venue on the waterfront in the summer of 2006. I can't remember what it was called. I think Sunnyside Pavilion. What a fun party that was!
yup that's it. Those parties are organized by MILK and a great summer fixture. Nice review btw., very thorough.
Harmonika
Awesome review - thanks for taking the time to post all of those sweet deets and vids! North America *really* needs to take a lesson from Europe when it comes to electronic music events.
The track you weren't sure about is DJ Rolando, a.k.a. The Aztec Mystic - Knights of the Jaguar, f.y.i.
The Highroller
quote:
Originally posted by dEsidEL
yup that's it. Those parties are organized by MILK and a great summer fixture. Nice review btw., very thorough.
Hope to see more of them this summer, although I remember some bull going down about noise complaints last year and a couple of their parties getting shut down. :o
The Highroller
quote:
Originally posted by Harmonika
The track you weren't sure about is DJ Rolando, a.k.a. The Aztec Mystic - Knights of the Jaguar, f.y.i.
Thanks!
Orko
Fantastic review!
It really made me want to travel, visit and explore other areas of the world. Especially to see how people celebrate life. I've always thought that if you have to move somewhere, you have to live there for at least one year, to go through their festival cycle, to see how they celebrate life, and which events are important to them.
