17h57 I am approaching the main stage of Rock en Seine, always with no news from Josh. I note a line of people slicing through the crowd and attach myself to the back of them, receiving a piggy back the front of the sound tent. There the line dissolves and I get stuck between a guy with a Franz Ferdinand t-shirt and his girlfriend, and a really short guy and his even shorter girlfriend.
18h07 Beirut starts. Mr Franz’s girlfriend asks “er, did you know that they were so.. well.. like this?” Mr Franz shakes his head. “Well, we will stay till the end, and then we should try to move forward for a good spot for the Ting Tings”.
I tense up. They are possible competition. Are they only here for the Ting Tings, meaning they will leave before Arcade Fire? Or is this an indication that everyone is going to wait around for the next four hours, like me?
18h15 Josh still hasn’t arrived, and this is the band he wanted to see. I’m trying to enjoy the ukulele playing. It is mighty fine ukulele playing.
18h20 A rather bouncy tall Frenchman jumps through the crowd. Mr Shorty and his girlfriend are dancing to Beirut and Mr Bouncy says “you are both sooooooooo cute!” They get embarrassed and stop, but he forces them to continue. He sees his friends just ahead and jumps over to them and hugs them.
18h22 Mr Bouncy is now standing directly in front of Mr Shorty and his even shorter girlfriend. He notices this, and turns around, saying “to the right, or to the left?” Mr Shorty is confused.
“Well, should I stay to the left,” Bouncy continues, “and u can look past me to the right, or vice versa?”
“Left.” Shorty replies. Bouncy goes to the left, and is still blocking them.
“Er, not right.” Bouncy goes to the right, allowing Shorty to see but blocking Shortys girlfriend’s view. Meanwhile, Bouncy has pulled out a wine bladder from his bag and is offering wine to Shorty, then to his girlfriend. He is complaining about how horrible the wine is, and that he had bought the exact same wine yesterday and it was good. But hell, it’s cheap, so he doesn’t care too much.
Josh still hasn’t arrived.
18h28 Josh calls. “Can you wave, so I can see where you are?” He asks.
I wave.
“I can’t see you…” he says.
Why are festivals just a constant reminder of how short I am? I jump up and down waving and eventually he can see me.
18h34 Josh arrives, just as Mr Bouncy has continued offering wine to everyone, then forced Shorty’s girlfriend to stand in front of him. At around this time, a bunch of what looks like 14 years olds hop by in a line, forcing their way through the crowd quite violently, obviously utterly drunk.
“Fuck, they are kids” I say. Josh tries to hear. “Did you say they were dicks?” he asks.
18h50 Beirut ends. CHAOS IS EVERYWHERE. We drive forward, along with Mr Frandz and his girlfriend, while others are racing away from the stage to god knows what. We managed to get to the metal central part (for those of you who have been to Rock en Seine, well, you know what I mean.) We realise we are roughly at the fourth row or so, and we manage to get enough room to sit. The waiting begins.
19h10 I decide to head off to get us food, water, alcohol and do a toilet break. Sadly it seems everyone else has decided to do exact the same thing. I stare at the hour long queues with fear.
19h25 Josh calls, saying he won’t be able to keep my spot for very much longer.. the crowd is very pushy! I have to return, with only water. We will have to manage for the rest of the night foodless and without alcohol.
19h35 wait, wait, wait.
19h40 people start standing up on the edges, and we, of the comfortably seated on the metal part, refuse. A wide, jovial Frenchman announces to everyone in a booming voice “People! You need not stand! Do not feel obliged to conform to the tyranny of the standing! For seated, we have the power…” he continues like this for about a minute, and ends to a round of applause. A young guy comes over and says “what is your name, I want to congratulate you on your speech.” The jovial guy stands up to shake the young man’s hand, and the whole crowd boos, calling him a hypocrite. He is so drunk he can’t understand why everyone is booing.
19h50 The Ting Tings start just as the Dicks, I mean Kids, come slicing through the crowd, up to the front next to us.
19h55 The tallest Dick is putting out his cigarette in the hair of the shortest Dick. Mr Jovial tries to stop them, saying short Dick has such wonderful, wonderful hair and that it was a tragedy to burn it.
20h00 Tall Dick picks up short Dick and puts him on his shoulders. The remaining group of Dicks start undressing short Dick, who is so out of it, he barely notices.
20h10 Everywhere around us is chaos. We seem to be in a calm group of about 10 people surrounded by a raging, soaring mosh pit. People keep on crowd surfing over us – one hits josh in the head when he isn’t looking – but, for now, we are safe. We seem to have found ourselves in the “jump up and down” crowd, rather than the “run at the person next to you” crowd. As it turns out, all of the people in the calm group would turn out to be Arcade Fire fans…
20h25 The Ting Tings are really warming up, and though I try to keep the calm people surrounding me (they must have thought I was very kind, often allowing people in front of me, but really, I was maintaining a buffer of people I had singled out as being less violent), a French couple come barging through and it’s all over: “Hey, if we can’t go mad for the Ting Tings, then we can never go mad”, they tell me. The calm collapses.. everything moves in every direction and it is a joyful madness, with lots of elbows hitting heads and feet kicking shins.
20h40 A particularly mad Frenchman appears next to me and I say a bit too loudly “oh oh”. He hears me and says “Hey, all this mad bouncing about is the best way to get to the front!” When he realizes he can’t actually get any further, he pulls himself up and crowd surfs to the very front.
20h50 The Ting Tings end. No one is leaving from around where we are. Josh leaves for a toilet break and everyone tries to sit, but there isn’t enough room. We end up sitting on each other.
21h05 The two girls next to me are trying to sing Arcade Fire songs, but can’t remember parts. I stop myself from helping, and continue reading American Psycho.
21h15 There is a great vibe in the crowd. The girl next to me starts chatting to me, saying how she can’t understand how I can read in all of the madness. When Josh returns the crowd helps him step over them, making small foot holes so he can reach me.
21h40 There is less and less space. The tension is rising. It is now dark, and we watch as props appear on stage: floodlights, a billboard, a painted screen depicting a highway. People start cheering for every technician who walks on, and starts singing in semi unison “wake up”. The guy next to me REALLY can’t sing.
22h00 The stage goes dark, the opening to “the suburbs” begins, and then, as the seven appear on stage, unexpectedly turns into “Ready to start”. I almost die of excitement and yell at Josh “It’s the one I really like!” He nods. All around me people are singing along. Arcade Fire achieves again what I witnessed in 2007: the biggest Karaoke I have ever seen.
The concert continues with beautiful numbers from all three albums. The crowd favourite “No cars go” gets everyone singing and jumping, while “Ocean of Noise” is spectacular, borrowing two trumpet players from Beirut.
The great thing is: everyone seems to be short. I can actually see! My joy is slightly spoilt by a rather grumpy old man to my left who is standing with his elbows jutting out defensively, sticking into the soft of my back. It gets so annoying that I ask him to move them, but he replies that it is my fault for moving about to the music. His glare shows that he has judged me as being a… *gasp* hooligan.
22h55 The concert is spectacular. I don’t know if it is because I know The Suburbs better than any other album, or if it’s the fact that they are doing weird and wonderful things to the old songs they are playing, but it feels better than last time. I am trying to work out whether I could call it “my best concert ever”, kicking Sigur Ros and Radiohead off their thrones, when it starts to sprinkle. Then to rain. Then to pour.
Arcade fire play for one song under the torrential rains and, due to the direction of the wind, end up being utterly soaked. The technicians come out at the end of the song and say they have to get off stage. Tarpaulins come out while the audience puts on raincoats and jumpers. The old man, now a little behind me, drops a packet of chewing gum as he is putting on his raincoat. I bend down and pick it up and give it to him. His eyes go wide. I think this might be the equivalent of that moment where Jean Valjean turns Javerts moral order on its head. Or maybe not. Either way, the old guy then acts really nice to both Josh and I.
23h05 The rain continues.
23h10 Arcade fire comes running out and with a minimal amount of instruments and faltering props and video projects, play Wake up, to which we all, of course, sing and rejoice. The spotlights illuminate the rain as it falls, and it is an utterly breathtaking experience.
23h15 Arcade Fire bows to the cheering crowd before throwing their drum sticks. The lead singer comes running up to directly in front of where I am. I try to reach out and touch him but he is just a bit too far. Almost, amost…
23h17 The rain stops. About 5 minutes too late.
23h20 It becomes somewhat clear that it is over, but even when technicians make official announcements telling everyone to go home, many remain. People are divided between cheering, slightly angry demands for more, and conversations on the lines of “well, what we did see was amazing”. Josh and I leave and make our way to the metro utterly drenched.
Rock en Seine ends for 2010.
[side note, this still holds very true: http://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=16 ]
