Delgres, Docks Lausanne, 03/07/2024

IDLES Halle 622 Oerlikon/Zurich 03/14/2024

In life, there are first times that leave their mark. I like rock, I like blues, I like both together too. I was lucky enough to combine two concerts for that special review, two bands on top of their art in a one week stretch. And this one review is going to be special: for a first-timer, it was a revelation, two bands, two worlds, two audiences, two attitudes of closeness and devotion to the public, two bands with a political point of view. Music as a link between human beings. Music as a unifying proposition in movement, rhythm and symbiosis, a vision of sharing and letting go, of disconnection, of soft consciousness of important political topics that need to be put on the table. The French trio DELGRES and the mighty indie powerhouse that is IDLES around the world nowadays. One goal : describing the world and its complexities in a succession of powerful songs.

See Delgres interact with their audience at the end of the concert, taking selfies and signing the band’s latest vinyl release is a really pleasing moment. Already three albums in less than eight years, released on PIAS records, their aim is to blaze a trail in the codified world of rock. Delgres’ rock is still a wasteland where everything has to be rethought with solid fundamentals, language, organic guitar-drums-percussion twists… This wasteland becomes a promise land. Their sound is readjusted to a world where hip-hop has taken on a considerable role, where the codes of rock music, blues and the Creole language of the French Antilles will appear in a different way, whether in the head of a young person who has discovered music without records, or an almost-fifty-something who once has known cassettes and vinyls. Music lovers will understand Delgres’ ability to put day to day life’s snapshots in a song that is melodious, catchy and raw at the same time. Simplicity in the composing process, amazing rendition.

Delgres names the actors who will have to explain their decisions. « Mr President », for example, a message addressed to the abusive power of the French Republic’s government body and its mastermind. This song is about the difficulty of living and being when you’re always the one who comes after. Back in our mind, here’s a France that colonized Africa, exporting slaves like cattle. This history of France that we still find hard to welcome into the dining room’s stories, lost and blocked somewhere in our memories. So many horrid events that we want to look away in shame, it is hard to accept but this France that still rejects immigration and the social contract in the name of « traditions » to maintain, according to Marine Le Pen, from the extreme right party running in first position in the poles before the European elections.

Delgres offers this view and criticism of the omnipotence of France in his motherland of Guadalupe, a very accurate critique of what the former Napoleonic empire may have left as bloodstains on the conqueror’s map of the world that it shared with Anglos and Iberians, among other conquistadors of death and doom in the Americas, Asia and Africa. The human workforces displaced to the various Caribbean islands continued to live in the memory of their oppressed, sometimes dehumanized ancestors descendants’ minds. In short, Delgres speaks to the ones who are still dealing with the long process of decolonization and reconciliation, oppression and healing And Delgres repair moments of suffering with words and music, they do it well with the help of their crowd. Their music is a balm to the heart, their music is cathartic. If this theme of colonization is such a rich material still exists, it is because of the economic coercion or because of the pretext of ecological warming that can only be controlled by the capitals of rich countries, Delgres will have material for life.

The singer of Delgres, who has been promised « heaven on earth », as the latest album says it (« Promis Le Ciel »), takes to the stage at Les Docks without forcing himself or releasing all energy at once. Pascal Danaë’s quiet strength, his guitar slung over his shoulder, his sweet voice, all the ability to translate the abuses of white empires on the « souqueurs » of galleys on a raging sea, these oarsmen of hell hand power to the Lausanne crowd, pass their emotions in the songs, the cries of effort, the cries of pain. The Delgres band engage with the audience, paying homage to John Lennon’s « Working Class Hero » at the end of their performance, like the end of a film, where the happy ending is tinged with realism, like a Ken Loach film but in the style of the French Caribbean movie director Jean-Claude Barny. The performance is terribly bewitching, you enter a gentle trance and can’t stop dancing. You can feel this simple euphoria growing in the Lausanne-based band, and Rafgee’s subassophone punctuates the concert like a bassist given superpowers to transform chords into an underlying, intriguing, diabolical beat. This instrument and its use is a sonic treasure trove for live performance. Delgres loosens up his stage act at the end and takes the audience by the hand, Pascal communicating with great energy, bringing Switzerland back to an ancient territory of inspiration for the songs he composes. Lausanne is in the midst of a love affair with Delgres, underlined by the massive presence of the evening’s co-organizers, the members of the Crissier Blues Festival. May they continue to make their protégés vibrate on the bayou of Sévelin-Sébeillon, the docklands district of ultra-marine freedoms.

Delgres paying their respect to their fans in Lausanne’s Les Docks

Zurich-Oerlikon’s Halle 622 looks like a former industrial zone that’s now commercial and accessible. We also love Zurich for its ability to bring new life to old, post-industrial warehouses. The gamble of having IDLES play in this configuration is down to the generosity of TAKK, the concert booker and producer, and IDLES of course, great craftsmen of concerts that leave their mark on an entire people every time they play somewhere. I’m going to see IDLES for the first time and melt into a melting mass of people. Generosity, like Delgres and his conquered audience, will manifest itself in gestures, calls, slogans to be repeated, crowd games to be organized, crowd-surfing waves… IDLES performs and pushes a bit further the intensity, the Halle is almost full and the walls are still vibrating from Dist which served as an opening band. Dist came to warm up the bodies, distilling an inclusive world, in struggle with our broken world, fighting against the forces of evil. The reading of a placard signed by a young drummer from Fribourg named Arthur gives a glimpse of the relationship between IDLES and its people.

Arthur kindly asks the band if he can come up on stage and do a song with them. As Joe Talbot explains who the hero of the coming song is, « Danny Nedelko » drum structure is obviously known to the young Swiss fan who appears behind the drumkit. All eyes are on the young man. With musicians like these, it takes a hell of a lot of courage to get up there in front of a few thousand sweaty fans. But courage is transformed into strength, and the result is something solid, a near-perfect mastery. IDLES succeeds in combining sharing with a collective desire to push back the walls, and even break them.

The musicians of Ditz had opened the way for energy and intensity, the sound was very muddled, very sloppy, but the proposal of this equally seductive English band to heat up the audience was much appreciated in retrospect. A few minutes after the end of the Ditz concert, IDLES and their gang of hundreds of fans/travellers from Switzerland and elsewhere set the record straight, the sound was clear and the stage set was exceptional. In the audience, moshpits follow one another. Two worlds coming together, clusters of fans « colliding » with IDLES. It’s a phenomenon of collective creation, of reverence for « Talbotism » and its meaningful words. Joe Talbot, a great defender of the oppressed, reminds us where he stands with Palestine, and calls for awareness.

A man from the west of the UK in support of a people from the west of the devastated land, we’re bound to be glad of a stand to avoid massacre, but we don’t go into the geopolitical details of Hamas and its morbid vision of humanity. The band had been blasted for not being very vocal on the issue by Bob Vylan in the UK. It seems that IDLES did give a major statement. So in Zurich that night, Talbot and his band are on the line: « Free Palestine » is chanted repeatedly amid a deluge of layers of red lighting. Whether you hate Hamas and their policy of eradicating Israel through terrorism, or the settler domination that got Benjamin Netanyahu’s government partly elected, IDLES could wonder, will they play in Israel in the future, in front of a public that experienced the horror of October 7, and which today, to a large extent, supports the operations of the Israeli Defense Forces? This is a major concern when you have a position on societal issues, social justice, racism, immigration and the domination of one government over another, you have to have an opinion and to make it known on pretty much every conflict. If a band doesn’t speak out on all issues relating to these themes, it will finally pay the price. IDLES did not hesitate and will not hesitate. The oppressed are always in their mind.

IDLES dedicates « Mother » to the Palestinian people and follows with « Car Crash », then you can feel the telluric tremors from the front rows, and the demented rounds continue at the heart of the IDLES most vivid tracks. Next comes « I’m Scum », with its overdynamic rock’n’roll rhythm, and « 1049 Gotho », with the same sense of urgency on stage. The fans exult, and those with the gift of ubiquity throw themselves into the dance to find themselves tossed back and forth, but it’s all in good fun: « everybody moves but no one gets hurt ».

The encore sees Mark Bowen, in his elegant blue outfit, go into a state of diabolical trance, taking the microphone and surfing heads. Talbot who has survived the misfortunes of addiction, the grief of losing his mother and a few other dear ones along the years, delivers a vocal masterclass. He says it all in his lyrics and in his way of screaming his poetry, his aversion to the all-powerful comes out and it has an effect on me. IDLES with « TANKG » is inviting you to a seminal dance with the well-named song « Dance » produced with the help of James Murphy and the LCD Soundsystem crew, a combination of the world’s leading anti-conformists musicians on both sides of the Ocean. Like a boxer, Joe Talbot is taking the stage like the front man of Stones Roses, Ian Brown. His husky voice and his body moves attract attention, the audience supports the efforts of bassist Jon Devonshire or guitar/keyboards Mark Bowen to pierce the crowd like Moses breaks the sea in two.

With a false Christ-like air Mark Bowen feeds an audience in a trance, the security team sees no one collapse, the crowd surfing ritual has begun and we’re in for a total frenzy, but no violence. As Bowen once said in an interview, life at an IDLES concert is about catharsis, about letting go, about wanting to push the mind a lot further, to push the possibilities of scathing songs about the unglamorous behind-the-scenes stories of people whatever social class they are from. Those stories about families, jobs, addictions, the general view of what one has to do, pay bills, do what one has to do to keep going, talk to each of us. The right-wingers, the torries, the BoJo fanatics, the Brexiters taking the country hostage, IDLES chases the bad vibes around well-off motherfuckers and praises professions as social and support workers, healthcare workers, bar managers, security guys in a Hall in one of the wealthiest towns in the world, it is the inclusive Zurich we like. Bowen is also « working class hero », as Delgres or John Lennon would sing.

« Rottweiler » nails the show and I have the sight of a sweaty and happy audience. My experience is unique, it’s the perfect way to experience such an intense, melodious, symbiotic concert between an audience that gives as much as it receives, the band IDLES has scored points in my pantheon of exceptional artists like Sonic Youth, Slowdive or Jeff Buckley… The first times that were unforgettable were always related to rock music. And the rock band that most impressed me in my youth was Ride. Because Ride were at the top of a shoe-gaze scene that I worshipped. And the Inrockuptibles festival had the good idea of programming them in Rennes, near my home. First times are forever. IDLES has had that effect on me while I am almost 48 years old. And I’m looking forward to checking out their genius riffs at the Eurockéennes of Belfort.

David Glaser

Thanks to Alexandra (Les Docks), Aurélia et Michel (TAKK)