Rock en Seine

A marker of the Parisian alternative music scene, Rock en Seine did not fail to deliver on anything, this I can safely say after attending even only two days of the festival. The event is held annually in Domaine National de Saint-Cloud, a national park in paris' west, that provides a gorgeous natural back drop to the music. Rock en Seine is known for delivering on all it's lineups with past line-ups including Muse, Arcade Fire, Arctic Monkeys and Green Day. We were lucky enough across our two days (Friday and Saturday) to catch sets from Frank Carter and the Rattlesnakes, Franz Ferdinand, Mo, Her and Band of Horses. The acts really continued the alternative vibes this festival has and such an incredible array of performers, I think, may have actually blown my mind.
Franz Ferdinand were incredible to finally see, having heard their anthems at indie nights out for several years it felt so good to see them performed live. Being a part of a crowd bouncing around to 'Take me out' and  'This fire' can only be described as an indie fan's wet dream.
Riding the high of the post-Franz Ferdinand buzz, we carried the night on by seeing Mo (whose name I feel I always spell wrong, but I don't have one of those special 'o' keys on my keyboard, so what can you do?). She stole the show with her upbeat dance-y ballads, and had everyone going crazy for 'Final Song' on which the vocals were matched by an incredible light show.

The next day we spent the morning exploring the suburbs of Paris around our Airbnb, eating French cheese and drinking copious amounts of wine. A delightful start to any Saturday, I'm sure you will agree. We arrived at the festival to watch peter peter's set, an interesting French band whose music I was introduced to by my sister. Following their performance we hung around the stage as the next performers was French band, Her. Her were one of the acts I was most excited to see over the weekend, and there set was phenomenal. it was the first live performance of the band following the tragic death of co-frontman Simon Carpentier to cancer earlier in august, and their entire set was emotive and beautiful to watch. I felt honoured to be a part of it, and the band themselves are incredible performers, whom I wholeheartedly recommend seeing live.
Rock en Seine sparred with  my initial views of a European festival, with many of it's traits mimicking that of an English one. Starting earlier than the usual festival acts kicked of at roughly 14:30 and finished by 12:30, this was clearly yo the benefit of the festival-goers as it allowed us to still make use the public transport i.e. Paris' metro system. This made it ten times easier (and cheaper) to get home, so my initial qualms of not getting the usual European festival experience I'd come to know and love were gotten rid of, I'm a sucker for saving money.
My overall Rock en Seine experience was so memorable and incredible, and I would definitely go back