Festival Trente Sept Deux, 2nd edition
Last weekend, Gruissan-Plage, the little-known, caught fire to the sound of the lives of the thirty-seven-two festival, initiated by a colourful quartet from the French antipodes. 37,2, in homage to the cinematographic success of Jean-Jacques Beineix, whose main action was shot on the said beach. DNA: Music, beach, and gastronomy. We’ll tell you about it.
It is a small village planted at the edge of the Mediterranean, a few kilometers from Narbonne – pronounce Narbona in Occitan. The beach forms a crescent with indecent proportions, covered at its extremities by saltworks where quietude is the order of the day. On the land side, urbanization is strangest there: a village of houses on stilts, a sort of vernacular architecture, laid in blocks like Grosse Pomme. Any comparison in New York stops here. The narrow streets of the old village, a few steps away, wrap themselves in snails around a large block of limestone, flanked by the Barbarossa tower. At least what’s left of it. A setting full of contradictions, picturesque as a whole but a tourist manna on its own.
Recent fortune for the small seaside resort: a quartet of music lovers has chosen it to plant its stage, here are now two editions. On one side, TDA (acronym of Tête d’Affiche), represented by Greg Boust and Pauline Hislaire, guardians of the Baron’s night soundtrack, among other hypocritical feats of arms. On the other, the solid shoulders of two local guys: Aurélien Cordoniou and Thierry Dozoul, well determined to shake the torpor of their town by a few electronic sleight of hand, and a pugnacious willingness to open up the local hearing to the indie until then mono-sensitive to the Top 50. This is a great challenge, all the more so as it is also necessary to convince sponsors to join the adventure and, in the meantime, to be satisfied with the subsidies that the Languedoc-Roussillon region has kindly granted. So, in this restrictive economic landscape, everyone is getting their hands dirty: volunteers flock from surrounding towns, local producers sell out their organic stalls and the line-up ignores its big fees. A beautiful emulsion of collective commitment, which tints the general atmosphere with a very particular charm. Without forgetting the “popup menu” of the Chefs, invited successively in the kitchen of the ephemeral restaurant, including Lionel Giraud, from the St Crescent table, 1 Michelin star. A wonder
From noon to 2am, the djs follow each other between the two spots. The villa’facing the sea’ by day, the big stage at nightfall. The TDA team, widely represented: LeAm, Anja, Polo & Pan, Naughty J, Claap, Santana, CätCät etc. On Friday and Saturday, the production raised funds to offer itself the lives of rigour: Who Made Who and Hangar give themselves as food to the neophytes, from 22h. Although it seems difficult to aggregate the onlookers along the crash barriers, the sauce rises crescendo and the rock elk end up getting the most timorous. Well, they’re doing the show, guys. But the real heckling and his cohort of rabid young people really only form on the stroke of midnight, with the arrival of the evening headliners: Pedro Winter x Para-One on Friday, The Shoes on Saturday. From then on, the pit is transformed into a no man’s land seeping. The sun has hit hard, the rosé has sunk hard, nobody responds any more. Some came from Narbonne, others from Toulouse, maybe even further away, there was no question of turning back. The four compatriots have won the bet and can return to the backstage for the rest of the night, with all the satisfaction of the accomplished task. The edition will end on Sunday, with the beach party of the Ambush, and a last blow of Mehari pink candy, hair to the winds, direction the station of Narbonne.
