- As Oliver Warwick put it in his review of last year's Weather Festival, the Paris weekender represented "the high watermark for machine music in the French capital." Thanks to a handful of new venues and a wealth of fresh, exciting bookings, Paris's scene has been completely transformed in recent years, giving rise to a strong and dedicated audience. Among the key players in this resurgence are Concrete, the team behind the popular Sunday boat parties of the same name, and now, Weather Festival.
Last month's edition, dubbed Weather Winter, was the team's third festival since 2013, and the first outside of the usual summer slot. Events of this size tend to be slick operations from start to finish, but not in this case. Due to some electrical fault, the sound had to be completely turned off at one point, and condensation dripping from the roof caused the lighting board to break down. But these were only small hitches. And anyway, it would've taken a lot more to stop the festival's 11,000-strong crowd from dancing right through until the doors shut at 8 AM.
The one-day festival took place at an events space located near Porte de la Villette, in the north of Paris. The action was split across two halls, kicking off at 6 PM with Concrete residents Behzad & Amarou and Lowris on stage one. Over in the second arena, Point G (AKA DJ Gregory) played a lively set of mostly his own material, keeping the floor grooving along nicely. The crowd clearly weren't just here for techno.
Romanian star Raresh followed, before Matthew Jonson and Minilogue joined forces for a rare live performance. Giving the pair the peak-time slot proved a winning move from the organisers, as the trio's keyboard improvisations and progressive acid loops gradually sent the audience into a hypnotic trance. Over on the other stage, DJ Deep was busy working his way through a flurry of thumping selections. As the local stalwart handed of the reigns to Zadig and his army of machines, headliner Laurent Garnier took his position in the space nextdoor.
This was Garnier's first time at Weather. In June, when the summer edition takes place, the French veteran is busy hosting Festival Yeah!, his own boutique event in the south of France. As high as expectations were for his Weather set, he didn't disappoint. Spinning for three hours, Garnier was a picture of concentration from start to finish, leaning almost exclusively on his collection of tough-talking techno. To close out the festival, though, he went for an all-time classic—DJ Rolando's "Jaguar."
Photo credit: Jacob Khrist