“It hurts, it’s a page that turns”

After 56 years of concerts and fiery evenings, in the presence of stars, the Bus Palladium, an emblematic club in the Pigalle district of Paris, is closing its doors for good. The announcement was made in mid-February on social networks. The last evening is scheduled for this Saturday, April 2.

This closure had been in the pipeline since 2018 but was accelerated by the health crisis. “It hurts, it’s a page that turns”, confides Cyril Bodin, artistic director of the establishment for 12 years.

Opened in 1965, the Bus Palladium is above all a legendary concert hall. It has seen the biggest rock stars: Eddy Mitchell, Alain Bashung, Etienne Daho.

Mick Jagger celebrated his birthday there, Salvador Dali organized a flat water banquet there. Some artists have even dedicated songs to him, like Serge Gainsbourg in “Who’s in, who’s out”.

Just the name, “Bus Palladium”, says a lot about its history, explains Michel Guët, historian and heritage guide in the 9th arrondissement of Paris. “The Palladium is a fairly famous nightclub in New York. And the bus was mainly the idea of ​​being able to transport young people to come and have fun in a place. Shuttles were notably organised.”

Michel Guët recalls that in the years 1965, was “the era of yeyes”the one where “youth becomes a social force”.

This place of the Parisian night is so important that a group, which everyone knows, has reformed there: Telephone. He had already recorded his first 45 rpm, in 1977, at Bus Palladium. And on the evening of December 10, 2013, when the group broke up, the members present held an improvised concert. This remains the best memory of the artistic director of the establishment.

“Corine Marienneau, the bassist, was not there that evening, says Cyril Bodin. So it was the Telephone boys, the Insus.”

Louis Bertignac arrived at the last minute, when Jean-Louis Aubert was about to leave. Naturally, they went on stage and started playing “The Human Bomb”.

Cyril Bodin, artistic director of Bus Palladium

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“Everyone started crying, holding their faces in their hands”remembers, moved, Cyril Bodin.

In 56 years, the club has not been empty. Since 2010, it has attracted 1,000 to 1,500 people every Friday and Saturday evening, depending on management. Among them, Brian Scott. This American choreographer, former master of ceremonies at the Crazy Horse, arrived in Paris in 2006, remembers very well his first evenings in the capital.

“I was taken to every corner of Paris where the revelers went, so my friends took me to the Bus Palladium. I remember I was a little nervous going in there, because it’s a place where there were only trendy people. But in the end, I was there, and we had some very nice evenings.”

The club will become a hotel, “rather luxury”, according to the artistic director, who ensures that the owner of the walls plans to integrate a disco there. But it will be necessary to wait for the end of the work, in two years, to have the heart net.