The Relâche festival sets Bordeaux nights alight

The festival, supported by the Allez les filles association, combines aesthetics with a program of open-air concerts in Bordeaux throughout the summer, free or at low prices.

Those who still believe the rock label is inseparable from the Relâche festival would do well to open their chakras: the musical event, supported for fifteen years by the Allez les filles association, has broad ideas. Claiming more than 80,000 spectators each season, this popular event offers around forty concerts this summer, which cover a wide variety of aesthetics: rock, of course, but also soul, pop, electro, reggae, Chilean cumbia...

Concocted by Francis "DJ Feelgood" Vidal, a veteran of Bordeaux's electric nights since the 1980s and always relevant in his programming, the Relâche lineup regularly lines up salvos of several consecutive evenings, in the setting of the pretty Dom Bedos square, a stone's throw from the banks of the Garonne and a stone's throw from the Saint-Jean train station.

On Tuesday, July 29, the Chicago Blues Summer Tour, recently acclaimed at Cognac Blues Passion and expected on August ¹ for Summer in Pau, will be in Bordeaux. Illinois singer, songwriter, and guitarist Mike Wheeler will be in command of the lineup. His seasoned quintet will bring the overheated atmosphere of Chicago blues clubs to the stage. As for singer Faye "Peaches" Staten, her powerful, warm voice makes her a credible successor to Koko Taylor and Etta James.

Opening the show, the audience will be joined by two Bordeaux natives: keyboardist and harmonica player Vincent Pollet-Villard and guitarist Florian Royo. Charb-On, the trio they form with Toulouse drummer Guillaume Destarac, plays internationally acclaimed roots blues.

Four rock bands will play on Wednesday, the 30th. The robust garage rock of the Americans Des Demonas will be the highlight of the evening. Hailing from Washington, this quartet is led by punk poet Jacky Cougar Abok. Equally intense, Spoon Benders from Portland, Oregon, embody another revival of US rock, pugnacious and lively. Opening the evening, two bands from Aquitaine, flagships of the current indie scene, will meet: the quartet Moloch/Monolyth, released on the Pau label À tant rêver du roi, and Opinion, the project of Hugo Carmouze, already recognized nationally.

A change of scenery and colors on Thursday, July 31, at the same venue: the incredible Chilean band Chico Trujillo has already set Relâche ablaze in past editions. Founded at the end of the last century, this group has modernized the original cumbia with contributions of reggae, rock, bolero, and Andean music. Generous and expert, Chico Trujillo is a party, with singer and multi-instrumentalist Aldo "El Macha" Asenjo as the king.

The opening act will be the big band Newen Afrobeat, which will play an even more modern version of cumbia, fused with Fela Kuti's Afrobeat. This Chilean group integrates Latin American sounds with the distinctive rhythms of Nigeria's explosive jazz-funk. Militant and fiercely independent, Newen ("strength" in the Mapuche language) sings for the environment, equality, and the rights of indigenous peoples.

www.relache.fr