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The Versailles Connection
Electro at the Château
Versailles
03/07/2007 -
The setting could not have been more grandiose with a giant stage erected on stilts in the Bassin de Neptune, the biggest and visually most stunning fountain in the gardens of the Château de Versailles. Tiers of seats cascaded down around the fountain amphitheatre-style and these began to fill with rows of eager music fans early in the evening. Backstage before the show, Jean-Benoît Dunckel - one half of hip electro duo Air - was in reminiscent mood, recalling how "We’ve made such a lot of music in Versailles over the years. It was here that Alex Gopher initiated us into the art of recording with Étienne de Crécy. It’s great to be back in the Versailles cocoon. Versailles turned out to be such a hotbed of music!" Dunckel’s henchman, Nicolas Godin, appeared equally glad to be back home, adding that "The gardens at the Château have given me a lot of musical inspiration in my life!"
Thomas Mars, lead singer of Phoenix, had slightly less fond memories of his youth in Versailles, quipping that "You have to realise boredom was an inspirational force, too! On Saturday nights, there wasn’t much to do in downtown Versailles so we’d get together and play music. That was our act of freedom, our moment of pleasure!"
Electro network
Jean-Benoît Dunckel and Nicolas Godin first met in 1984 when they were both pupils at the Lycée Jules Ferry in Versailles, a stone’s throw from the Château grounds. The following year, they went on to set up the group Orange with Xavier Jamaux (Ollano, Bang Bang) and Alex Gopher. The group played together for two years but finally went their separate ways, having failed to sign with a record label. After the demise of Orange, Alex Gopher and Étienne de Crécy honed their musical skills training as sound engineers. Meanwhile, Jean-Benoît Dunckel went on to become a maths teacher and Nicolas Godin worked as an architect. Then, a highschool friend working on a series of French electro compilations for the Source Lab label got in touch and asked Dunckel and Godin to write a track for the compilation. In 1995, Godin recorded Modulor Mix, a tribute to the French architect Le Corbusier, while continuing to make music with his now official partner, Dunckel.
While Alex Gopher, Air and Étienne de Crécy all sprang from the same nest, the musicians in Phoenix come from a slightly younger generation of Versaillais. The band nevertheless came to prominence accompanying Air on British television. As for Daft Punk, another electro double act often (erroneously) associated with Versailles, they actually attended school in Paris. But they do have a Versailles connection somewhere - the duo formed their first band, Darlin’, with current Phoenix guitarist Laurent Brancowitz!
A watery end
Given Versailles’s status as a hotbed of electro sounds, it was only a matter of time before someone picked up on the connections. Guillaume Bourgain, general secretary of the Château de Versailles’s entertainment committee, who produced the concert this weekend, was the first to come up with the idea of a collective Versailles bash. "After Sofia Coppola shot her film (Marie-Antoinette) in the Château, we realised that the best-known artists associated with the French Touch all come from Versailles. and we thought it would be a great idea to get them together where it all began. Staging an event like this is also a way of attracting a different public to the Château."
The Château de Versailles had certainly never been used to stage a major electro-pop concert before, an event which promised to be even more thrilling than the "Plaisirs de l’Île Enchantée" party once organised in the palace grounds by the Sun King, Louis XIV, himself. Unfortunately for modern-day electro fans the Sun King’s emblem made its absence sorely felt on Saturday night as rainclouds gathered ominously in the sky over Versailles. When Alex Gopher strode out on stage to launch the festivities at 9pm he was greeted by a light drizzle. The electro star has branched out in a new pop-rock direction of late, stepping behind the microphone as a singer, and he put in a fine performance in front of the crowd even though he seemed slightly ill at ease with his new role.
Next up on stage was Étienne de Crécy, who warmed up the dampened crowd with an expert techno-oriented DJ mix featuring nifty samples of his early hits (Prix Choc, Le Patron est Devenu Fou!) and tracks by Simian Disco Mobile. By around 10.30pm the early evening drizzle had become a steady downpour but the audience lingered on, sheltering under umbrellas. Undeterred, Phoenix stormed on stage amidst a haze of white smoke, lead singer Thomas Mars triumphantly announcing "We’re back in Versailles!" The band, who have set up their own recording studio round the corner from the Château, launched into a series of hits, galvanizing the crowd who went wild when Mars leapt into a rowboat and proceeded to splash across the fountain to dive into the crowd. Sadly, Mars was stopped dead in his tracks when the sound system went down.
Then, after a soaking forty-five minute wait, the group most of the 7,000-strong crowd were waiting for finally arrived on stage around midnight. But after only two songs, Nicolas Godin threw in the towel, telling the audience "Sorry, but with the rain and everything, the synthesizers have all blown!" A few minutes later, the security men moved in to dispel the crowd, signalling the end of Air’s set and the end of the watery Versailles reunion.
Nicolas Dambre
Translation : Julie Street
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