the essential
Tuesday evening in Varaire, Manu Chao played to a sold-out crowd in front of 1,500 spectators from all over France. A tour de force from the Vrai repaire festival team. What was the concert really worth?
He was expected as the Messiah, the Maradona of the rumba. This Tuesday evening, Manu Chao chose Varaire, where he had never set foot, for his intimate concert tour. A confidential format which necessarily could not satisfy everyone: 1,500 festival-goers bought their tickets in just 3 minutes, last March. So, it’s an understatement to say that Tuesday’s concert was shaping up to be the event in this small Lot village of 300 inhabitants. “We’ve been following him for thirty years, he’s fabulous,” explains Dina from Toulouse. She and her companion, Michel, were lucky enough to pick up tickets on sale on Bon coin. Ali, a fan for 35 years, arrives from Montauban. “My daughter managed to buy a ticket for me,” he says.
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Marielle, 49, had a “great time” the last time she saw him on the Bikini stage in Toulouse. “It’s rare and it’s getting old, me too, so I’m taking advantage of it,” she smiles. For Marie and her friend, who came straight from the Decazevillois basin, it was obvious to be present that evening: “He rocked our childhood, we are incredibly lucky to see him. The places sold out quickly, we was in the starting blocks to book.” Same state of mind for Mercedes, who dreams of taking a selfie with her lifelong idol: “It’s incredible to have her in the Lot, the volunteers did a good job”.
DDM – Pauline Frayssou
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A medley of his great hits but the spirit of the intimate concert is elsewhere
After the first part, as pleasant as it was sunny, by the Rumbakana group which reinterpreted the Gispy Kings, Paco de Lucia or the Aranjuez concerto, Manu Chao entered the stage a little before 10 p.m. Khaki cap on his head, wide jeans, Che look, he begins with his greatest hits medley version: Me llaman calle, La vida es une tombola, Libertad… And he often asks the audience: “Que pasa por la calle? “
On the first six songs, he jumps on his chair, guitar in hand accompanied by the Djembe and then promises, when getting up, to “force the machine” in front of a committed crowd and volunteers in purple striped football jerseys. We want to believe in its promise of “vino blanco and yerba buena”. But this Tuesday evening, the magic does not fully work. Because the spirit of the intimate concert is not there, this format conducive to confidence and anecdotes told to the public. With its “Lololalala” played on a loop during two hours of concert, it is rather the Bayonne Festival atmosphere which takes over. So there you have it, a breath is missing, an acoustic parenthesis, a guitar voice. A bit of the poetry that we know well.
DDM – Pauline Frayssou
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At the end, he dedicates Clandestino, which is still very popular, to “all the drowned people of the Mediterranean” and reminds us that no one is “illegal”. Then, the next piece “against the massacre in Palestine” continues. The air has cooled, and so have the festival-goers, disappointed that Manu Chao is not telling them a new story. This evening, the best agitator of the anti-globalization struggles has lost a little of his verve and his splendor.
