I heard “European Music Festival”; I thought “Eurovision”.
But I’m stunned and pleased to report that these dread preconceptions were proved entirely wrong by ‘Festival Europavox’...
This June Bank Holiday weekend saw the second annual incarnation of the Europavox Festival, which was held in Clermont-Ferrand (home of the Michelin Man) in the Auvergne region of France.
The event aspires to “materialize European identity through music”, and attempts to achieve this by featuring two promising acts from every EU country. The Chalets represented the Irish last year, but we were noticeably absent from the European roll-call this time around.
Apart from obscure French rappers (well, they were obscure to me) and an orchestra from Hungary, this year’s festival also featured some more mainstream acts like 2 Many DJs and the UK’s Tom McRae.
In the spirit of European integration, I made some continental friends, who were able to steer me towards the more promising acts that Europavox had to offer.
Norway’s 120 Days seemed to have generated the most pre-show hype amongst the French youth, and their set on Friday night was packed to capacity. It didn’t disappoint – their intriguing blend of electro-rock and dark heavy riffs made this performance the highlight of my weekend. All eyes were on 120 Days frontman Adne Meisfjord from the moment he stepped onto the stage. He kept the crowd enthralled by playing the role of tortured artist with self-assured style – from ripping his shirt off to staring vacantly out at the crowd, and at one point pretending to strangle himself with his mic cord. Meisfjord’s melodramatics were superseded only by the bands impressive performance of ‘So This Is Suicide’.
Other highlights of the weekend included Finland’s ‘Rubik’ and Swedish singer/rapper Neneh Cherry, who stormed the stage with trip-hop band cirKus to a packed house on the final night.
Europavox? Douze points.