The Cure’s performance brought me to the Rock En Seine festival, held every August at the Domaine National de Saint-Cloud. Of all the “stops” the Cure has made this year, mostly European festivals, I chose a place that had added value, a special meaning for the band’s leader, Robert Smith.
Robert Smith's French midfielder
In an interview with the television cultural magazine Télérama (2012), Smith admitted that France is one of his favorite European destinations, sometimes even more so than England. He said that there is a certain sensitivity in all of The Cure's activities that creates a strong identification with the French audience, and that The Cure is not a truly English band.
In August 1986, The Cure held three legendary shows, milestones in the band's history, also remembered for their spectacular location – the ancient Roman amphitheater in the town of Orange, Provence. Director Tim Paup immortalized the events in a concert film, “The Cure in Orange,” released in 1987.
Robert Smith's French connection dates back to his school days, when he read Sartre and Camus in the original language, but the language was long lost to him. During the festival performance, Robert blabbered a little "in French like you've never heard before" and immediately declared that "anyone who didn't understand is not French." "Natural fans" will probably remember the mini-controversy that the song "Killing an Arab" - the official debut single of the Cure, which was interpreted as encouraging violence against Muslims, but was actually based on the existentialist novel by Albert Camus, “The Stranger.” The song’s lyrics have been changed on various occasions to “Killing Another” – and even to the playful “Kissing an Arab.” Only in 2018, at a concert in Hyde Park to mark the band’s 40th anniversary, was the song performed in its original version, for the first time in years.
The French influence on Cure is not limited to literary references in selected poems; it is a broad ideological and cultural influence. The roots of the Romantic style, which is very dominant in all of Smith's work, lie in the Romantic movement, whose prominent exponent was Jean-Jacques Rousseau. The great epic events, such as French Revolution and Napoleon's defeat at the Battle of Waterloo, sparked a storm of intense emotions that contributed to the flowering of Romanticism in European culture.
The connection to France continued throughout Smith's career:
- The Cure's first show in Paris, in December 1979 at the Bataclan club, created a strong connection with the local audience. In an interview published in the Cure's biography, Ten Imaginary Years, Robert even claimed that the band's bassist Simon Gallup had slept with half the audience in a matter of days. The capacity of the Bataclan club: 1500 people.
- Robert Smith lived in France for about 8 months in the 80s.
- The huge hit Lovecats was recorded in Paris. The song seemed to forever trap Smith in the “cat lover” mold in the eyes of his fans, but he said in a 2003 interview with Humo magazine that the song wasn’t about cats at all, but about a pair of lovers who had made a suicide pact.
- The album Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me was recorded at the Chateau Miraval estate in Provence, also known as the wedding venue for Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. Legend has it that during the 10 weeks of work on the album, The Cure emptied an entire cellar of wine from their 400 hectares (4000 acres) of vineyards.
- Robert Smith stopped smoking tobacco in 1985, but on every visit to Paris he succumbed to the guilty pleasure of Gauloises – short, unfiltered cigarettes, a symbol of national culture and chic, billowing smoke between the fingers of Serge Gainsbourg and Brigitte Bardot in iconic photographs.
- Robert Smith used to frequent the Le Queen club in Sderot Champs Elysees, which has been the city’s main gay and drag club since the 90s. Robert even brought his father, Alex, there for his 2003th birthday. It was his father’s first time “at a transvestite club,” Robert said in an interview with “Music Express” in 2018, adding that his father had learned a lot from him over the years. In its final years, Le Queen shifted its focus to mainstream mega-parties, until it closed in XNUMX.
In honor of The Cure’s appearance at the Rock En Seine festival, French music magazines published special editions dedicated to the band, with fresh interviews and collections of articles and retrospective interviews. In a 1989 interview with Les Inrockuptibles2, originally published in honor of the release of the album “Disintegration,” Robert discusses the representations of romance in his songs. Smith, a calculated entertainer who trades in the “true love” narrative, reveals cautious honesty, admitting that he prefers to avoid using the word “love” and replace it with “flirting.” Flirting, he says, is one of his sources of inspiration in writing. In an earlier interview, he also said that he doesn’t take anything seriously, including love.
Video: The Cure's performance at the Rock En Seine festival:
https://youtu.be/1DfhI6VdUO8
Saint-Cloud
the park Saint-Cloud The vast, 4600-hectare park has been the site of the Rock En Seine festival since 2003. The park is located next to an exclusive residential community, one of the richest in France, of the same name. The park contains the remains of the Saint-Cloud Palace, which was the residence of the French rulers. Queen France The latter, Marie Antoinette, received the palace as a gift from her husband, King Louis XVI. The rose garden in the park bears her name. After the French Revolution, Napoleon Bonaparte converted the palace into his office. The Saint-Cloud Palace was destroyed by fire from bombs during the Franco-Prussian War in the 16th century. A few surviving exterior walls and the magnificent 19th-century Cascade Fountain are the only reminders of the palace's splendor.
The sculptures scattered throughout the park were placed in later periods. For example, the well-known sculpture of the three allegorical female figures “France Crowns Art and Industry” by Elias Robert was moved to the park in the early 20th century. One of the festival stages was assembled at the foot of the statue. Today, the park is considered federal territory and is under the supervision of the Ministry of Culture. It features several gardens in different styles and an observation point on the ParisIn 2005, the park was awarded the honorary title of “Notable Garden” by the Ministry of Culture. During the festival, it was not possible to examine all the beauty of the park – this required a special visit.
Rock En Seine
The contribution of this wonderful festival to me was not limited to selected performances; the two busy days of the festival that I attended (out of three) emerged as a comprehensive experience of music and creativity. Rock En Seine – This is an urban and stylish festival, suitable for lovers of a comfortable life, like me. The rest of the festival opened at noon, before the performances began, which allowed for spending time in many interesting spots: lectures on the performing artists, DIY workshops for shirts and accessories, a reading room with music and culture books, meetings with the authors.
Alongside the big international names (in addition to The Cure, Apex Twin, Direhunter, Royal Blood, Johnny Marr, and more) local artists performed.
- The band We Hate You Please Die intrigued me especially because of the name, which sounds like I made it up. They are a young, energetic, and photogenic queer-punk band from the city of Rouen. Their performance ended with the song that bears the band's name.
I remembered that a song of the same name appeared on the soundtrack of the movie “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World.” The band Crash and the Boys, who performed the song in the movie, dedicated it to Wallace Wells, Pilgrim’s gay friend, who made fun of them. I don’t know if the band’s name comes from the movie, but like the movie’s hero, the young musicians from Marwan shout their ideology in the face of the world, where quite a few people live for whom this song is intended.
- The electronic duo Kompromat is a project of two French artists who perform under the stage names Vitalic and Rebecca Warrior. Their musical approach is electro-clash, a mix of genres that combines electronic dance music and techno with industrial, punk and electronic sound from the early 80s, when it was still considered “fringe”. The name of the band – it is a Russian word that means political blackmail. The term “kompromat” was used by the KGB and referred to various techniques of collecting “incriminating” materials on political and public figures. The band’s ingenious logo distorts the original word by using English letters and upside-down Russian letters, which look similar to the “correct” letters. Kompromat’s performance opened the first day of the festival. They took to a smaller stage after the Cure’s performance and provided a feeling that the party had just begun.
Video: Kompromat performance at the Rock En Seine festival:
Logistics and costs
I purchased the festival tickets on the official website. Tickets could be purchased for each day separately, for two days, and for all 3 days. I bought 2 individual VIP tickets for two days, which gave me entry to the VIP areas, which provided the “privilege” of staying in a covered and shaded area with seating, more “luxurious” toilets, and sometimes shorter lines at food and drink outlets. There was also a standing viewing area, relatively close to the main stage, on the side. Each such ticket cost about 100 euros, while a regular entrance ticket cost about 70 euros. The festival was quite easy to access via metro line number 10 (Pont de St-Cloud station).
A few words about the author
Nili Hankin is a journalist, writes about culture in newspapers and magazines, in Hebrew and Russian, and also lectures on music. She is currently working on her first radio special on the subject of the underground Soviet rock scene, which will be broadcast on Radio “Essence of Life.”
