Filter's visits to this side of the Atlantic are not frequent, and Richard Patrick's appearances on French stages even less so. Over the last twenty years, his appearances can be counted on the fingers of one hand, so it was out of the question to miss the man who set foot in Paris for an evening organised by Garmonbozia that full of angry rock and 90s nostalgia.
BELMONDO
And yet, despite a band name that evokes daddy's movies, the opening act doesn't exactly smell of mothballs:
If you add up the ages of the four members of Belmondo, you might get the age of Jean-Paul, who would probably have been very amused to see them on stage, as he loved crazy acrobatics. Belmondo has no shortage of energy: they shake, they grimace, they communicate with humour, in short, they are very much at ease, and they put on a show with an infectious good mood.
The short tracks follow each other in rapid succession as their 'grunge goth' label takes on its full meaning. There's the visceral energy of Nirvana, Hole or Queen Adreena, that slightly punk-destroy side that smells of beer and LC Waikiki banana bags (in the end, despite its modern touches, 90s nostalgia also exists within Belmondo). The raging explosions and efficiency are complemented by a quirky, tormented expressionism that's very British, and even a certain heaviness that creeps in from time to time, with batcave, industrial and cabaret ghosts haunting rhythms and Carmen Mellino's facial expressions. A Franco-Swiss-British melting pot, Belmondo oozes energy and leaves us with a few catchy tunes in our heads (RTD) and a few perfectly phrased French phrases ("on va tabasser la mort", si, si, that's very well put, we do it a everyday). A very cool discovery.
FILTER
If Petit Bain has been packed from the start of the evening, it's to see the boss. Even though the audience is made up of people of all ages, you can tell that Filter have done well to kick things off with You Walk Away: catchy rhythm, Layne Staley-style inflections on the chorus... a hard-hitting track that's twenty years old is a great way to quickly win over the audience.
However, a strange impression emerges from the first moments of the concert. The lack of light on the musicians' faces (too bad for the photos, no one's going to say "hey man, nice shot!"... unless we use filters, maybe!), Richard Patrick's teleprompter and his dark glasses (perhaps a modest coquetry due to the teleprompter) create a barrier, a distance that delays the first fires in a pit that's just begging to be stirred up. It's a bit of a shame, because the tracks from the recent The Algorithm, the band's best album in over twenty years, deserved both more conviction and a better reception. While the star of the evening is obviously the singer, we're also blown away by his young drummer, who gives the tracks the power and drive that were a little lacking at the start of the set.
We're on a boat, and it doesn't take much for the madness to spread. You still can't see much, but Richard Patrick doesn't give up. He goes out to his audience to shake them out of their torpor. "If you want to start a moshpit, now's the time", he says, before sending up the angry The Take about halfway through the concert. Yeah, it's about time. The big man was full of good-natured exchanges, conveying his share of positive messages: "we're all friends", "be good to each other", "you're fan-fucking-tastic", "fuck Trump", that sort of thing that inevitably attracts sympathy.
When the first spark flies, it's a blaze. The stage-dives followed, the audience bawled, the sweat poured out and Richard Patrick finally dropped his prompter and glasses, immediately creating a new connection with his fans. He filmed his audience several times, crouched down to make contact and repeatedly expressed his pleasure at playing in a small venue like this. Thoughts and Prayers, American Cliché, Welcome to the Fold: whatever the era, Filter stirs us up with his mix of industrial rock and visceral grunge (well, at the risk of alienating a lot of people, we always get a bit bored during Take A Picture, the aptly named: it's time to take a breather and take a few photos, the monumental success of this track remains an enigma!).
There was a real crescendo to the concert: we started off a little cold and ended up with the unmissable Hey Man, Nice Shot, that's how high the emotionnal roller-coaster was. Over the course of a generous set, we experienced that strange moment of floating, as well as the delirium of an overturned crowd. If the songs had something to do with it, the personality of the frontman, no slouch when it comes to giving of himself, also had a lot to do with it. Aware that they'd been very lucky to see Filter in such intimate conditions, the audience came away happy: their nostalgic instincts had been satisfied, but above all they'd been treated to a great concert. Next time it'll be madness from the start!
