RIVAL SONS AT L'OLYMPIA IN PARIS
After a busy summer promoting their sixth album, ‘Feral Roots’, in numerous festivals, the Californian band Rival Sons started a new fall European tour. They brought the new French rock phenomenon, MNNQNS, with them on tour. We already saw them two weeks ago, at a Last Train concert , and it was a real pleasure to enjoy their show again.
MNNQNS opened the night with an intense performance, filled with their hits from their first album, ‘Body Negative’. Obviously very happy to play one of the most prestigious venues in Paris, the four piece band immediately launched their concert with explosive energy and contagious determination. The public was mainly there to support their favorite American band, Rival Sons, as the many t-shirts of the band spotted among the crowd testified. However, they all welcomed the four young musicians with enthusiasm, visibly enjoying their unique mix of pop and post-punk. After having seen them four times this year, we have many favorite tracks of theirs live, from “Wire (Down to the)” to “If Only They Could”.
Rival Sons were set to go up on stage around 9pm. Impatience slowly developed among the spectators, chatting excitedly about the return of the Californians in the French capital. As soon as they appeared on stage, the venue loudly cheered the musicians. A show can sometimes take some time to reach its maximal intensity, but that was not the case here. There was no warm up for Jay Buchanan. The singer showed charisma and energy as soon as the first notes of “End of Forever” rung. He also indulged the spectators (and the photographers, let’s be honest) to many of his antics on stage: dancing, screaming into his mic right in front of the photographers, joining Scott the guitar player for his solo part, and many others. The setlist kept a balance between their sixth album, ‘Feral Roots’ and their fourth one, ‘Great Western Walkyrie’. It was a great performance, for the greatest pleasure of the packed spectators of the Olympia.