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A big thank you to Michela Cuccagna for providing pictures. and Sophie for Interviewing Mura Masa...
We Love Green 2016 was a highlight on our agenda for two reasons. The first and most important for was the return of LCD Soundsystem to their old touring customs and show we couldn’t miss for ANY reasons. So the moment we knew the festival would open late because of biblical and unforeseen weather delays and consequences our heart went pounding in dismay… How, when, why ? we asked ourselves. How can they even think of such draconian measures ?!
Aftermath, and after much debate amongst festival goers at the entrance, we finally managed to crab-walk our way into the site. And boy oh boy the sight got us thinking… It must have been a terrible, anxious filled night for the organisers. Figuring if they should indeed opening and gamble on mother nature, or simply cancel and ticket buyers wouldn’t flip into a up-rising. A French Spring of sorts. Thankfully for us, the organiser and the media… damage control was effectively implemented. With a few draconian but necessary measures taken :
- Parts of the line-up had to be cancelled
- A whole area of the festival, named Lalaland shut until half-way through the first day. Thus cancelling any of Les Inrocks Lab’s line-up as a consequence
- Tons of gravel / sand mix had to be trucked in on the main stage floor to drain the vast expanse of water that was unfurled onto the grounds during the night and previous week
- Bales upon bales of straw were also trucked in and sprayed around the most affected areas in an attempt to suck up the muddy pathways and some critical areas of the site.
With all that underway as we enter the site, you kind of appreciate the gigantic effort, organisers went through to keep things as manageable as possible. And the work put in paid off in the end, at least musically, the shows were pretty insane from the get go !
It was slippery, our trainers had a difficult time coping with the mud, but came through like troopers. Community Managers on We Love Green’s socials had warned to come equipped with wellies and rain-overalls. Something most of Parisians wouldn’t be seen dead in. However, after raiding the high street boots shops (out of stock might I add for having checked for myself) we were surprised at the actual equipment of festival goers turned out in. Most of them with wellies, some with a carefully chosen pair of their oldest trainers and high-rises.
However bad the weather was, however bad the mud had tempered with our abilities, and however bad the unavoidable washing session had to be for everyone. The paramount safety/security of the festival goers was put to the test during the exit. With LCD Soundsystem’s set finishing at the same time as Amon Tobin’s DJ set on the facing stage, the bottle-neck was very scary for punters to get through, with pushing, shuving non-existant crowd management by the security, adding to that the very poor design of the exit routes surrounded by barriers was a recipe for disaster. That was the only black point on an otherwise highly qualitative, diverse and eclectic festival lineup execution on the organisers’ part.
DAY ONE HIGHLIGHT : LCD Soundsystem were back in a big way.
LCD Soundsystem were back tonight. In a big way. It felt like nothing happened in those five years since they called a hiatus at Madison Square Garden to a sold out crowd came in to appreciate a white funeral and a 3 hour long set. Back on the stage tonight as the headliners of today’s events in Paris. The post-punk rock outfit spearheaded by the awesome James Murphy did it in absolute style, precision, substance and to everyone’s awe. Tackling the incoming drizzle of rain during their set. The New York band made of Nancy Whang, Pat Mahoney, Tyler Pope as the main characters, delivered hit after hit after hit with great progression, the setlist speaks for itself: Us vs. Them, Daft Punk is Playing at my House, I Can Change, Get Innocuous!, You Wanted a Hit, Tribulations, Movement, Yeah, Someone Great, Losing My Edge, Home, New York, I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down, Dance Yrself Clean, All My Friends.
You should have seen the crowd going nuts in the muds, not giving a flying crap of all the difficulty and challenges the day had thrown at them. Everything disappeared in thin air as Murphy’s appeared on stage that Saturday night in Paris lush, green and muddy neck of the woods.
Enjoy this mp3 from the much talked about 2011 Madison Square Garden set, “Dance Yrslf Clean” as you read on. It’s 9 minutes of total bliss that could spark some nostalgia on your part if you attended the We Love Green 2016 come-back or were there in NYC when it went down:
Other highlights of day one included Minuit and Hot Chip, all playing on the main stage that afternoon. Mura Masa was on the think tank stage and blowed minds too.
