Techno Parade

Second of its kind. A panorama of electronic music

Paris 

17/09/1999 - 

The Techno Parade closes a week consecrated to electronic music (we spoke about it yesterday) on Saturday September 18th, 1999 in Paris. Second of its kind, it already confirms on paper the creativity of different actors of this scene with more affirmed musical diversity this time around.

A year ago, the bet became reality. A 5.7 km route in Paris with thirty floats parading which ended up in a gigantic rave at Place de la Nation. 200,000 people. The cellular phone networks were saturated; the road was paved with festive vibrations from the sound of each float.

What progress has been made ever since! Accepted occurrence or big circus? In any case electronic music marks its influence on people's thoughts. Television theme songs, commercials, films...take this trend into account.

The Techno Parade closes a full year on a European level. The Sonar Festival in Barcelona, Spain "opened the ball at the end of June" and it's Paris that has the audacity to conclude. The comparison with the Love Parade in Berlin forever rests on the lips. Even Zurich is in the running. But Paris can be proud of its Techno attributes.

This year, more than forty floats, as many dance floors are expected with the best DJs and will make up 90,000 m2 at the end of the parade. What ended last year as a festival of rioters at the Place de la Nation like a gigantic trap for the aficionados, will take place this year on the Pelouse de Reuilly (at the entrance to the Bois de Vincennes) and different Parisian clubs and halls. An organisation which is right on track for an event which nevertheless is not exempt from things getting out of hand. Like every event.

More than 40 floats to parade

Forty floats from different geographical and musical horizons of Techno, Everyone can head out on the search for his style, his genre and even his musical country of adoption. Because if this Techno Parade takes place in Paris and if the capital is always accused of its cultural cannibalism, different regions of France will be there. And really there. The float from Nancy (Eastern France) last year made its mark by its blackness and its gothic ambiance. Paris and its halls with Laurent Garnier, Manu Le Malin, Phunky Data, etc. always impose their hold on things. But cities like La Rochelle, Bordeaux, Dijon, Bayonne, Rouen, Avignon, Le Havre, Montauban and Marseille (with Jack de Marseille, of course) eternal rival of the Capital won't be outdone.

The Techno Parade shows us that Paris is no more than a rallying point, a European and international geographical opportunity. London (with The End, famous London club), Brixton, Bruxelles, Geneva and the Croatian DJs will take France out of the center. But it's the FIDH (Fédération Internationale des Ligues des Droits de l'Homme) the International Federation for Human Rights that will without a doubt win the prize for eclecticism. As much regarding its initial vocation as in the reception that it offers to electronic music. "All men will dance free and equally" lets the South American DJs on board in order to promote them (let us all be for human rights). Based on the theme of an island drifting from one continent to another, the groups Zuco 103(Amsterdam/Rio), Sinpalabras and P18 (Cuba), and DJs Fred Galliano, Trip do Brasil (DJ Cam and Armand) Antoine Chao and Nikoloz Machaidze (RFI Est Discoveries) will be there all under the aegis of the FIDH so that we all dance free and equally.
And if we have to go to bed?

To end the evening, how to choose from which this year already seems like frenzied eclecticism? See Goldie, the pope of the jungle at Bercy? See Laurent Garnier in his den (the Rex Club)? Spend the evening at the Queen to be there or go to the Zenith to groove with American DJs like Carl Cox and Jeff Mills, unstoppable awakener of the internal groove?

Yet the Americans who are forerunners of the techno scene with two symbolic towns like Detroit and Chicago will be in limited number. This Techno Parade is resolutely European. An event that is improving because last year the scene was essentially techno and this year, house and jungle will have more space. A move to normalisation or eclectic panorama for all of the good listeners? It's up to you to decide when you're there. And especially don't forget a good after at Batofar (on the riverbank near Bercy), the Seine will show you that it all flows from the source or that you cannot stop such a flowing current.

Emmanuel Dumesnil

For more information :
Visit the magical window of the Techno Parade Techno Parade(Don't hesitate to download the programs to progress faster).
The FNAC proposes to its internet users to be there virtually thanks to the patience of its webcamers. Try it out.