Glaz’art is a groovy music space in the 19th arrondissement (north east corner of Paris) which features all types of music but on Friday March 27 it presented a night of Post Rock and Noise. It is a small and skinny venue, and was very crowded on this cold Parisien evening, so securing a standing position with a view of the stage was very difficult.
One Second Riot are a two piece from Lyon, France who create one hell of a fun noise, consisting of drums and bass/vocals/synthesizer, plus a nice collection of movie soundtrack samples. They played a great collection of songs occasionally leaning towards the post rock, instrumental direction but with their sound more rooted in noise and punk. Quite disconcertingly, and unexpectedly, most tracks had english lyrics, as were the filmtrack samples which were played to complement the music.
With the bass player mixing it up between creating looped sounds from his (often distorted) Rickenbacker bass and creating blips and washes from his synth (or visa versa) and screaming and singing, it was a noisy, uptempo set and a great first rock band to see in Paris.
I enjoyed One Second Riot enough to buy their CD.
Mono are a favourite band who we last caught in Brisbane. They have been in hibernation for the last year working on the new album which they have just released and are currently touring in support of, Hymn to the Immortal Wind. Much of the set came from this album.
It was a tough gig for the band and for some of the audience. Unlike the event we attended at 104, which was very civilized, Glaz’art is a music venue not too dissimilar to the pubs I usually see bands in back home, and this can encourage all sorts of people.
Tonight there was a growing babble of noise from the bar at the back of the venue and a group of dickheads were constantly talking loudly throughout the entire gig, while standing quite close to the stage, and despite everyone around them trying to shush them, they didn’t give a shit and even seemed to enjoy this fact.
I don’t know if the band were aware of this, if they were they ignored it and put on a huge and long show.
When I last saw Mono in Brisbane in August 2007 it was a very *rock* performance with much (albeit controlled) posturing and gesturing, but tonight the boys playing guitar spent most of the evening seated. I’m not sure if this was because they were in the early phases of playing the new album and found this more comfortable, or to enable access to their effect pedals to tweak the delayed and sustained sounds, or what. But in the confined space of Glaz’art it made the difficult viewing even harder.
But luckily Mono are all about the music, and what cavernous music they played. Moving from moments of gentle guitar or piano so subtle they couldn’t be heard over the inane chatter of the dickheads nearby to thunderous delay on delay on delayed guitar with riotous drum and bass creating a sound to wake the gods.
After playing a number of new tracks the boys arose to play a few older tunes, to the huge approval of the crowd, and some rock posturing and gesturing ensued.
The gig seemed to end far too early, although it must have been close to a two hour set, and as is my want I bought the Mono t-shirt in celebration of my first favourite gig in Paris.
Then it was back onto the metro and back to Chatelet and our apartment, on the journey watching the Friday night revellers stagger around the metro stations en route or through the streets surrounding Tour St Jacques and around our neighbourhood.
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