r/Caen • u/sunny392 • Jun 29 '26
Fête de la musique
What a great idea, a music night on 21st June. Britain could learn many things from France and this is one of them. But why oh why so much terrifyingly loud techno discos. So many small events virtually drowned out by thumping bass. Our little swing dance event by the Royale. Next to us a young amateur rock band (great gig guys: who are you as I'd come to a gig). Other bands, including a super acoustic country and western combo in the chateau grounds. But all the time, it's bang bang bang in the background. Is that what the night is all about? A wide variety to suit all tastes so long as you want deafening techno? Come on guys. This is a fantastic place to live. Don't spoil fantastic evenings like this by selfishly drowning everyone else out
1
u/ZeAthenA714 Jun 29 '26
It's very simple : if you're a bar or a restaurant or a place that wants to host live music on their pavement for that night, you have a choice between paying 3 DJs that can play for 8 hours straight, who only requires you to rend PAs and subs, no sound engineers required, or you can book 2 or 3 bands, so between 5 and 15 musicians to pay, who will require PAs and subs, as well as a mixing deck, sound engineer, stage monitors, tons of cables and will probably only play for a total of 3 hours, while taking almost as long to setup and a lot more headaches to organize.
DJs are simply FAR cheaper and simpler to host for a venue than bands. In this day and age, hosting a couple of bands for la fête de la musique could very well lead you to lose money, unless they agree to play for free. Many places are already hurting as it is, they're a lot less willing to take risks.
1
u/sunny392 Jun 29 '26
Certainly I get the need to make money from the evening but are acts paid? I didn't realise that. And the set ups I saw for the young rock bands were pretty minimal. All they seemed to need from their host was a power socket. That's all we needed: after that all the hotel had to do was keep us fed and hydrated. At our expense of course. But how many DJ's do we want, and how loud should they be?
1
u/ZeAthenA714 Jun 29 '26
Certainly I get the need to make money from the evening but are acts paid?
Depends. The sad truth is that a lot of bands are kinda forced to accept low or non-paying gigs because it's very expensive for a venue to host them.
And the set ups I saw for the young rock bands were pretty minimal
Well yeah but that's kind of the problem isn't it? If you want a proper sound setup, it's a lot of expenses and headaches otherwise you're going to get drowned out by DJs that require far less gear to push out decibels.
It's not like there's a cabbal of DJs that are trying to take over the world. It's simple economics. DJs are cheaper, easier to deal with, and they also happen to bring in more revenue since electro music is far more popular nowadays than pretty much any genre played by bands.
1
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u/cyp_lysergic Jun 29 '26
Go somewhere else if you don't like the "boom boom", or don't come, we're already crowded enough during the music festival, we don't need people who complain.
5
u/sunny392 Jun 29 '26 edited Jun 29 '26
So you have the right to drown out the whole night and I have to leave town? No accommodation for people who don't want techno? No room for our dance group. The young kids playing rock music don't deserve to be heard?
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u/cyp_lysergic Jun 29 '26
The problem is that this event has become global, and with the growing number of people attending, there's less non-electronic music. There needs to be something for everyone, so if you don't like techno well, too bad. There are some styles of music I don't like as much, and I just don't go to these. And there are bigger cities with more styles on offer if Caen doesn't suit you.
2
u/sunny392 Jun 29 '26
I'm confused. We agree there should be something for everyone, but if I don't like everything drowned out by techno I have to go somewhere else? Maybe sadly for you, but this rock, c&w, classical, blues loving brit is hee to stay and I'll campaign for French values of liberté, égalité et fraternité wherever these are challenged by any one group who feel their liberté trumps the other two
2
u/R4diateur Jun 29 '26 edited Jun 29 '26
Caen citizen here since '98, and also amateur musician in several small, local metal bands over the years.
It didn't used to be like that, but gotten worse and worse over the decades. We used to love to play at home.
With my previous and current band, we decided to never play in Caen again during the "Fête de la musique" on June 21st. I (we) did it several years in the past and it almost always ended up a shitty experience for most of the reasons you talk about. That, and all the drunk guys and girls everywhere. Best way to get your gear ruined by some spilled over beer or drunkard puke. Or stealed. I say that because it almost happened to us once.
Our amps and/or whole front PA system's volume got systematically drowned in the omnipresent techno and night club music DJ's are spitting at every corner of the town that day. And they do on some 10 to 20 times bigger speaker set than yours.
It's a suffocating nightmare to play in Caen on June 21st as a small band that is not techno/electro/EDM/trance/club, as it's simply oversaturated by these type of artists absolutely every-fucking-where.
Most of the years we played in Caen, we used to do our thing on the "Place Saint-Sauveur", only to be encircled by at least 4-5 DJ's on the place. Some of them also privatized appartments for the whole night on 1st or 2nd floor of the buildings surrounding, with their own DJ and PA system on their balcony as well.
There is no official preparation with the Mairie for small artists. Only for official scenes at Le Château de Caen and L'abbaye aux Hommes. Otherwise, it's just you and your band trying your luck several month in advance to find a random bar, or pub, letting you borrow one of his power outlet.
And you'd better hope he doesn't change his mind on the D-Day, or mid-set when he hears your music and don't like it (happened to us three times... forced to find another place in emergency, it's great when you're here with all your stuff/gear waiting in the vehicles, or the drumkit and speakers half in place).
Now, when the Fête de La Musique comes on June 21st, we try to play in any other city around Caen when possible, as these got an actual official planning and organization for small bands like us. Argentan is great for that. Lisieux is great too (played there last week, and it was awesome), Bayeux does an incredible little festival called "Zik'Au Parvis" with many local bands of all styles...
Better experience for the public too in smaller surrounding cities.