August 2020: only 1,500 lucky people attend a seated and masked day of Rock en Seine, crippled by the pandemic. September 2021: only two evenings in nightclubs bring together a handful of emerging artists. August 2022: finally, the most rock festival in France is reinstalling its stages in the heart of the Domaine national de Saint-Cloud. And this year, the Parisian event is adopting an XXL format to again exceed 100,000 festival-goers: four days, August 25, 26, 27 and 28.
For the occasion, the reunion of the great family of rockers invites historical figures and their more or less direct descendants. Even despite the cancellation of Rage Against The Machine for health reasons (and therefore an additional day scheduled for August 30), the behemoths are in order, and each day its headliner: the infallible rock of the Arctic Monkeys for Thursday, the four decades of career of Nick Cave for Friday , the psychedelia of Tame Impala on Saturdays… And their cousins or distant nephews, like the Idles, Fontaines DC, or Yungblud, who will provide the show.
“Rock en Seine is also a unifying festivalexplains its director, Matthieu Ducos, for their website. […] It’s very important to us that audiences become one.” So, like every year, the invitations were distributed far beyond the rock circle. Kraftwerk, Jamie XX, The Blaze… Electronic music figures of all ages will be there. A softer (and sometimes pop) slide should be brought by the long-awaited Stromae (Sunday headliner), FKJ, Aurora, November Ultra… And even hip-hop will not be outdone with the solar Lala &ce, or the flow straight out of Compton from Channel Tres.
For the most curious ears, go to the stage of the grove and that of Île-de-France for the “Club Avant Seine”. As with each edition, around ten emerging groups have been selected by a jury of professionals to join the programme. As for mini-rockers (6-12 years old), go to “Mini Rock en Seine”. In the program ? Boom, karaoke and drum machine.
Rock en Seine: August 25, 26, 27 and 28 at the Domaine national de Saint-Cloud, on the outskirts of Paris, with a selection of (re)broadcasts on the france.tv platform with Culturebox. (Click here for the full schedule.)