“I’m really sad to see this place closing,” reacted on franceinfo, Saturday April 2, Richard Kolinka, drummer (former of the Telephone group), to the definitive closure of the Bus Palladium. The nightclub, jazz club and temple of rock in the 9th arrondissement of Paris will be replaced by a luxury hotel.
franceinfo: How do you experience this closure?
Richard Kolinka: It is a great sadness to see a musical place close. I don’t really understand, especially since they’re going to make a hotel, it’s less dancing, there’s less music. But hey, it’s business, capitalism is always stronger than anything. So we crash.
What memories do you have of your concerts at the Bus Palladium?
It’s true that I have a very strong history with this place. The first 45 rpm with Telephone that we produced, we recorded it one afternoon at the Bus Palladium. It was a very nice place. It was the heyday of punks and disco. We were rather considered as punks. The reformation of the group happened at a party given by Philippe Dana at the Bus Palladium (in 2013) where we met Louis [Bertignac]Jean Louis [Aubert] and me on stage. We had a blast that night and that’s kind of what gave us the idea of playing together again.
Eddy Mitchell, Alain Bashung, Etienne Daho, and many others have played there. Was the Bus Palladium an institution?
It was a place of music. In Paris, there are not many places to make music or to listen to it compared to cities like London or Berlin. A room is not the same as a club, even if you come to listen to music. At the Bus Palladium there weren’t just groups passing by, it was a club, you could dance, have a drink. A room is not quite the same thing. A club is a place where you come to party, see people, you come to flirt, whatever you want. I’m really sad to see this place closing.