Concert Review: Rock en Seine Festival, Paris, France!

Guillaume Oster
Sep 3
5 min read

Rock en Seine is the last of the summer music festival held annually in Paris since 2003 on the banks of the river Seine on Domaine national de Saint-Cloud, just west of Paris. It first began as a one-day event featuring ten bands and has since grown into one of Europe's premier festivals— now taking place from Wednesday to Sunday, with multiple stages, and attracting up to 40 thousand music lovers per day.

This festival may ring a bell for many who did not attend because it was there that the Gallagher brothers cancelled their last show in 2009 after their backstage altercation that led Oasis to a 16- year hiatus that ended this year

On the 20th we attended Rock en Seine for their now classic « Women-Only Wednesday »

It’s been a few years now that the festival first day consists on a full female fronted line up. Indeed the organization wanted to promote gender diversity and inclusion and social awareness.

Those Wednesdays have become great popular successes. In 2023, Tove Lo and Billie Eillish gave amazing performances, in 2024 Pomme and Lana del Rey followed them for a beautiful summer night, each time with a totally sold out festival

Rock en Seine makes sure that the festival is a safe place, for everyone, promoting diversity, respect, ecological responsibility through their communication, stands, or awareness questionnaires sent to the media accredited

This year Wednesday line up was as follow :

Main stage : Luvcat, Suki Waterhouse, London Grammar and Chappel Roan

Second stage : Sofia Isella, Théa

We only covered the main stage

As always on those Wednesdays the audience was female by a vast majority, the queer community well represented and the atmosphere was really joyful, maybe helped also by the fact that we were all very lucky that the weather forecast published in the morning and promising us that we were going to be drowning under the rain turned out to be totally wrong

LUVCAT

The opening duty fell on Sophie Morgan Howarth aka LUVCAT who had the always tricky part of launching the festival on the main stage.

Luvcat is starting to spread her name around. She opened for The Last Dinner Party at the mythical Paris concert venue Olympia in October, opened for Sabrina Carpenter in London and is coming back this autumn for a headline tour

Her 35-minute set saw her delivering her romantic rock with a big smile on her face, and catchy choruses which was very communicative for all the people around. It’s always great to discover new talents, who are clearly enjoying their time on stage and are appreciative of the upgoing trajectory they’re on. Luvcat was reminding us at one point that indeed she was amazed to be playing in front of this big crowd when a few years ago she was playing small gigs in Liverpool

Check her music

SUKI WATERHOUSE

Second act of the day was Suki Waterhouse. Suki is a woman of multi talents and lives. I was with a friend who was showing me a picture he took with her in 2015 when she was walking the runways of Paris Fashion Week as a model. Some of you may know her from a movie or lately the series Daisy Jones & the Six. Tonight, she was there as a singer, singing her indie pop rock songs for 40 minutes.

Funny thing, considering the festival history, was that she mentioned she had the chance a few days ago to see one of the Oasis reunion concerts, and felt so lucky to witness this rock miracle that she decided to cover Back in Anger, which was the highlight of her set since all the crowd was backing her up singing

LONDON GRAMMAR

The sets were minimal for the first 2 acts. But London Grammar brought their circular set surrounded by lights and a big screen, for their 75-minute set.

London Grammar is a UK band known for their band’s atmospheric sounds but also for the beautiful presence and powerful and captivating voice of Hannah Reid. This band has been successful in France from the start. Hannah took a little time to thank the French crowd for their support, remembering their early years when they were still playing small venues back home whereas when they were coming to France, they felt treated like rock stars.

You could indeed tell that a lot of the audience was not only here for the final act but also for them. The set started with sunglasses on, almost no projections on the backscreen, a not much light, but after a few songs Hannah took her glasses off, lights were back and the projections were back on the screen for their biggest successes at the end of the show, for the pleasure of the crowd

CHAPPELL ROAN

She was the headliner, and you could tell by looking at the crowd that they were here for her. Lots of red wigs, loads of full face make ups, glittering everywhere!

It took the roadies quite some time to build the stage that looked like a castle, where she would sing her fairytale!

The show was broadcasted live on French television and started at 10pm sharp, full night already there to enjoy all the show lights.

Chappell was supposed to play a small venue in September 2024 in Paris, with everyone back then trying to find a ticket on resale sites. But she cancelled last minute with no plans to reschedule. So, this was her first concert in Paris since then but this time not in front of only a thousand attendees but 40 times more.

What struck me the more during this set was how she included her musicians. Sometimes musicians are placed really clearly behind the singer, with no spotlight, and a few interactions during the show. Not at all here, they’re in front of the stage, interacting a lot with her, and they all seem to get along very well and enjoying playing together. And one of the guitarists, Andrea Ferrero, i must say, she killed the job! Great, great talent!

As expected, crowd sang along from start to finish Chappell Roan’s anthems, even during the few minutes of rain that finally hit us.

I was quite impressed at how Chappell looked like a music veteran on stage when a little more than one year ago i hadn’t heard of her. This is a skyrocket trajectory. Let’s see where that will lead her.