By Danny Franklin, 3L
Nouvelle Vague devoted their set to Hollywood and covered popular songs from 80s Films. Photo courtesy of Danielle Skornik.
French pop music brings a taste of it unique sound to Los Angeles. Wednesday September 23 marked the first ever Ooh La L.A. music festival which imported some of the French world’s most talented, unique and slightly pretentious musicians to the MusicBox at the Henry Fonda Theater in Hollywood. The three day tour-de-force music festival kicked off it’s premier night with French provocateur, Sebastien Tellier and Nouvelle Vague.
The Ooh La L.A. festival had Goldenvoice, of the Coachella Music Festival and All Points West fame, as a promoter. Music festivals emerged as a major force of cultural exchange capable of attracting flocks of tourist attraction to small and big towns alike. Big concert promoters like Goldenvoice and Live Nation have found a way to capitalize off music cultural exchanges in the last decade through the new phenomena called media consolidation. These mega-promoters provide the excitement and pretty much guaranteed crowds to get big names to headline. Live Nation, which promotes for House of Blues among other venues, boasts that they can do this because they are “vertically aligned from artist to fan.” Goldenvoice, via the Oh La L.A. brought Los Angeles a French music festival with the goal of promoting an understanding of French culture in what can easily be classified as the music capital of the world. Goldenvoice, one of the major competitors, controlling concert promotions for a vast majority of the Los Angeles venues ranging from the Fiarplex at Pomona, to the L.A. City Hall, to the Hollywood Bowl.
When SebastianTellier, the headlining act for the first night, took to the stage, his long hair & beard were a frazzled mess, hiding his eyes behind huge dark sunshades, a champagne flute in one hand an a bottle of champagne in the other. He raised his glass, soluted the audience, chugged it down and began riffing on his guitar. After the opening song, the first words out of his mouth were, “I’d like to take two minutes tell you about my bi-sexuality,” cupping his left hand while thrusting his right index finger into it, then softly whispering the words “you know.” His unique brand of electro pop and guitar grooves are brilliantly crafted crescendo’s that are nostalgically familiar because he hired Guy-Manuel De-Homem Christo, one half of the extremely successful French electro-duo, Daft Punk to produce his newest album, “Sexuality.” Tellier was a huge crowd pleaser, not only because of his sex-obsessed music but his stage presence with his debonair attitude and arrogant… qu’est ce que c’est… oh yeah, Frenchness!
Perhaps the most entertaining character of the night was lesser-known French-Canadian artist, by the name of Gonzales. Gonzales is a lot harder to categorize. He came out on stage wearing a nothing but a long black robe and white gloves. He sat alone at the piano and delivered a 10-minute virtuoso performance. But then he started talking and the pleasing sounds that he left resonating in your head quickly faded. In brief, he brought out his band, cursed at them for playing horribly, spit on the female vocalist, then sang ditty about how he had problems with constipation as a child, started rapping, asked the audience who came in “massively underwhelming numbers” to show some respect and shut up as he performs, then apologized for how harsh he’s been and asked for people to like him. My friends and I kept looking at each other and asking, “is this guy for real!??!” But there was something endearing about this man pouring his heart out on stage that you couldn’t help but wonder if his show would be any fun if he just sat and played the lone piano. He either carefully constructed his stage show to manipulate your emotions from astonishment, to disgust, hatred, anger, then to pity, or he’s just insane. It was up for us to decide. By the end, people didn’t know whether to applaud the performer or laugh at him. Regardless, his live show took a vaudeville act to the 21st century, and for that, I commend him.
More acts in the festival include Electro French Party, Cocoon, Poney Poney, and the marvelous Nouvelle Vague, a French cover band that takes 80’s pop music and reimagines them as “chillout jazz lounge music, a guaranteed crowd pleaser for children of the 80’s. Francophiles and music-lovers were all having a blast at the festival. The French music scene is definitely full of talent, and I can’t wait to see who will perform next year.
The Ooh La L.A. festival sheds light on the more serious and important dimension of the role of these giant international concert promoters.
