Les Eurockéennes 2013: Friday

After a long day wandering around the town of Belfort we head back to the Malsaucy peninsula for the second day of the twenty fifth annual Les Eurockéennes Festival and discover that yes it really can be that hot at 5pm, that Billy Corgan’s heart isn’t really in it and FIDLAR will never fail to rile up a crowd.

Deap Vally

“Someone played a trick on me” cries Lindsay Troy after Deap Vally’s first song. “They cut my guitar strap and de-tuned my guitar. This one’s not in tune either” she continues after swapping instruments “Oh well, who needs tunes anyway?!” The Californian duo then proceed to launch into early number ‘Gonna Make My Own Money’, its scuzzy White Stripes-esque noise and stop-start rhythms stirring up the stretched out, beer drinking beach crowd.

Working their way through frantic numbers from their newly released record Sistrionix Troy and Julie Edwards sloppy technical proficiency is made up in their swagger. Both shoeless they throw themselves into everything they do, Troy’s scratchy vocals accompanying her strutting stage presence whilst Edwards red curls fly back and forth with the heavy blues beats. As the set comes to a close Troy says “Merci beaucoup” in that wonderfully deep, drawling voice of hers like no one has ever said that phrase before, it’s direct and sexy, just like their music.

FIDLAR

From one howling mass of guitars to another, LA punks FIDLAR occupy the smallest stage on site, bringing their brand of college, skater infused chaos to the masses that have gathered there. The four-piece waste no time getting to the heart of things, ripping open their set with the anthemic cries of ‘Cheap Beer’ and crowd surfers begin to emerge, heading for disaster towards a barrier without adequate security as frontman Zac Carper urges revellers to get on stage. Revelling in their misanthropic tropes they run through ‘No Waves’, ‘Max Can’t Surf’ and ‘Stoked and Broke’ before finishing, as always on ‘Cocaine’. Seeing these guys is always a serious rush.

Woodkid

The French pop maverick draws an incredibly large crowd that is a battle to navigate, very literally, there are fights going on all around us at one point, punches thrown and drunk girls collapsing. Yoann Lemoine though is more together than anyone else we’ve seen all day, his stand out creations ‘Iron’ and ‘I Love You’ are grandiose and bold pop compositions and are accompanied by stunning visuals, as we would expect from this Grammy nominated director come producer.

The Smashing Pumpkins

There is a disbelief in Billy Corgan’s eyes. We’re not sure whether it’s because he can’t believe he’s getting away with this or because he’s genuinely, happily surprised that after 25 years, there are still so many people who care about The Smashing Pumpkins. Or, perhaps more accurately, still care about him. He is after all the only original member on stage tonight, though the band’s rotating line-up since Jimmy Chamberlin left in 2009 certainly do the original songs justice tonight.

The rest of Corgan’s face, is as always, deadpan. Especially when compared to drummer Mike Byrne and guitarist Jeff Schroeder, whose visibly beaming excitements shrines bright than the stages flashing strobe lighting.

Technically, you can’t really fault them tonight – they’re musicianship is a beautiful thing to watch up close and personal. ‘Starz’ makes an early appearance, their formula of sludgy progressive rock ringing out from overblown speaker stacks over an enraptured audience. Their cover of David Bowie’s ‘Space Oddity’ is definitely what we’d describe as “ill-advised” so we’ll just skip that part and get straight to what you care about. Yes they played ‘Tonight, Tonight’ and its soaring instrumentals, swirling lows and dizzying high were epic. Yes they played ‘Today’ and everyone went crazy. Yes ‘Cherub Rock’ made an appearance and the entire crowd was sucked into a mosh pit on a muddy hill.

And the biggest “yes” moment of all, they played ’1979′ as there encore – something they failed to do at Glastonbury and in a lot of their recent performances. Corgan’s preening, whining angst filled vocals perfectly weaving their way amongst that more than iconic guitar riff, we know we’re only two days in but this already feels like the defining moment of the festival.

Despite the instant rush of endorphins it’s cyclic rhythms and gentle harmonies release there is a slightly stale atmosphere that hangs over their show tonight, emanating from the fact that you never really feel like Billy Corgan cares. Traipsing back on stage to do the one song he knows most people are waiting for and leaving immediately after its last note rings out, we try to ignore it but ultimately we’re left with two words in our mouth to describe the general sentiment of this evenings performance: “Contractually obliged.”