Tens of thousands of festival-goers are preparing to re-surge on the plain of Kerampuilh, in Carhaix (Finistère), after two editions jostled by the Covid. For its 30th year, from July 14 to 17, the Vieilles Charrues return to their usual gauge, on the theme “Back to the 90’s”. A nod to its origins for this festival which has become one of the biggest in France.
On the pop and song side, we find Clara Luciani, Angèle, Stromae, -M-, Vianney, Juliette Armanet, Aloïse Sauvage, Mansfield.TYA, Friday on the sea, or even the young Rennes pop group La Battue. Les Têtes Raides, who return with Bing Bang Boom, and Midnight Oil, replaced Maxime Le Forestier and Queens of the Stone Age after their cancellations. Vitalic, Counterfeit, Thylacine, DJ Snake, or Meute and NTO will represent the electro scene. With a mix like no other: Bob Sinclar and Pedro Winter for an exceptional performance as a duo (or “B2B”).
In the rap department, are scheduled Orelsan, Laeti, from the series ValidLujipeka, SCH and Ninho, and for rock, the Irish Fountains DC, sacred “best band in the world” by British magazine New Musical Express, as well as Matmatah, Lulu Van Trapp, Fire! Chatterton or Izia. The Belgian-Congolese singer Marie-Pierra Kakoma, who goes by the stage name Lous and the Yakuza, or Celeste will also be on stage.
The culmination of three decades during which the Vieille Charrues made Brittany vibrate from within. After Bruce Springsteen who harangues his audience in Breton, Muse who sings in Kway under buckets of rain, a championship of “air biniou”… “We are very proud to celebrate our 30th anniversary with still so many headliners and new talents. It always amuses us to see the names of renowned artists on the posters from Berlin, London, Milan and … Carhaix that we now know how to locate on the map”, welcomed Jérôme Tréhorel, general manager of the festival, to AFP.
Special this year, 400 drones will rise in the sky each evening around midnight for a choreography accompanied by light shows and a soundtrack, to celebrate the anniversary of the festival, announced the organizers. Canceled in 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic, the festival was held last summer in a restricted form with a maximum capacity of 5,000 people for each of the ten evenings organized.
VSit should only be one “little party with friends” to celebrate the end of the academic year. In 1992, a dozen students and pawns attracted 500 guests near Carhaix (Finistère) for a fair “without musical pretension”with “bison grill” and “boot toss”. But, over the years, the team has “Wondered by an ever-increasing audience”until reaching 280,000 admissions in four days, says Jean-Luc Martin, volunteer president of the festival, who aims to “to make people dream at home”.
It’s a small Breton miracle, a rural Brittany of which we are proud.
Loïg Chesnais-Girard, president of the Brittany region
Associative festival without public subsidies, the Vieilles Charrues could not function without the volunteers, who today represent 7,150 people. The size of the event speaks for itself: 100 hectares of land, 18 million euros budget, 35,000 campers per day, 17.5 km of sausages and 39,512 kebabs sold per edition… “It’s a small Breton miracle, a rural Brittany of which we are proud”comments Loïg Chesnais-Girard, president of the Brittany region.
“This shows that our small country of Central Brittany, which was experiencing economic difficulties, a demographic decline, without TGV, without 2×2 lanes, without an airport, was able to meet an immense challenge thanks to the energy of its local population”, observes the mayor of Carhaix Christian Troadec, co-founder and honorary president of Les Charrues. Schoolboy joke at the start, the name “Vieilles Charrues” is a snub to the “Fêtes maritimes de Brest”, launched the same year, in reaction to the media “only focused on what is happening on the coast”. Each year, the kick-off is given by a “pulling plows” for “tracing the path of the new edition”.
To celebrate this culmination of three decades of riffs and lives, the cameras of France Télévisions take you to the Finistère festival. On the program: twelve concerts to follow live on Culturebox. Thursday July 14 with Bianca Costa (3:55 p.m.), Laeti (5:25 p.m.) and Le Juiice (7:15 p.m.). Friday with Luidji (6:05 p.m.), Matmatah (7:30 p.m.) and Stand High Patrol (9:45 p.m.). Saturday with Dewaere (4:30 p.m.), Mansfield.TYA (9:45 p.m.) and Vitalic (12:15 a.m.). And on Sunday with La Battue (3:00 p.m.), Structures (4:45 p.m.), and Metronomy (8:15 p.m.). Except for the latter, all of them will be available for replay very soon, with the Bagarre concert as well.