Rock en Seine

August 25

To grasp the scale of the event, all you need to do is step outside the Boulogne-Saint Cloud station, the terminus of line 10 of the Paris metro. A dense, steady, yet orderly stream of people flows along the kilometer separating the station from the vast park on the far western edge of Paris.

Three stages set amid greenery: the Scène de l'industrie for the more electronic and synthetic sounds, the Scène de la cascade (a shame the picturesque waterfall could only be glimpsed by stepping back from the front rows) for new names ready to take on the headliners of the Grande Scène, the main stage complete with giant screens, for obvious reasons sprawling out into the park's most remote corners. Making your way through the countless stands and the impromptu crepe-and-kebab picnics scattered across the lawns is quite the undertaking.

After the first clash between the evocative, Morricone-esque atmospheres of the ever-reliable Calexico and the aggressive 70s-nostalgic rock of the wild Wolfmother, it's the turn of Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. You immediately notice that New York isn't the only thing they share with Talking Heads and Velvet Underground - the mix is made explosive by a nasal voice reminiscent of Thom Yorke, hopelessly drunk in the "Pablo Honey" days. It's no coincidence that most of the crowd is entirely for them and snubs Carl Barat's Dirty Pretty Things. Inconclusive and unoriginal, they're only saved when the frenzied drummer hammers out the beat of their Libertines-style anthem "Death On The Stairs". Unexpectedly acclaimed are Kasabian, who stepped in just days earlier after Richard Ashcroft dropped out. They alternate tracks from the new album - among which the irresistible acid rock'n'roll of "Shoot The Runner", like a new Primal Scream, stands out - with their more rhythmic anthems ("Club Foot", "L.S.F.", "Cutt Off"), danced to by a crowd apparently not too keen on shaking their hips.

Even when the hits are missing, as is the case with the excellent TV On The Radio - a near-niche act in Italy - the crowd's response is disproportionate. Black musicians from Brooklyn who look like they stepped out of a Spike Lee film disown their rap roots in favour of a thrilling mix of industrial and new wave with light soul and funk contaminations. An incredible bridge between James Brown and Liars.

And now comes the hard part. On stage, the notes of Morricone's epic composition for "Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo" welcome the Raconteurs, featuring Brendan Benson and, above all, the much-awaited Jack White. Quiet and unassuming, he now holds the stage like the great rock legends who need no introduction and no showing off. When his shrill, scratchy voice cuts into the choral "Intimate Secretary", the roar is deafening. As for anthems, nobody seems to mind the one usurped by the Italians after their World Cup win. There's nothing new about the Raconteurs, but the drive of their revival-rock - richer and more enveloping than the White Stripes' minimalism - stirs even the most reluctant French fans. "Steady As She Goes" is the real rock anthem of the summer: not jumping to it is simply not an option. Finally, the poignant cover of Nancy Sinatra's "Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)", made famous by Quentin Tarantino in "Kill Bill", proves just how much Jack really is one of the best artists on today's scene.

While DJ Shadow opens the dance floor presenting his new journey through hip-hop, electronics and psychedelic rock-blues, "The Outsider", you have to literally sprint to the other side of the park, where a less current but still inspired artist takes the stage against a silvery backdrop bearing the unmistakable languid, ethereal face of Oscar Wilde. How could one not bow before mr. Morrissey? Inevitably sarcastic, he introduces the members of his band, spruced up in cream-white trousers and t-shirts with a pink Playboy logo on a pea-green background. Not him though - elegant, in jacket and shirt. A jacket he'll toss aside halfway through the show despite the mild temperature. One can't help being moved by the Smiths classics dug up for the occasion, from the explosive opener "Panic" through "Girlfriend In A Coma", "How Soon Is Now?" and "Stop Me If You Think You've Heard This One Before". You can appreciate the indefinable compositional talent in Morrissey's solo tracks too, with a more aggressive mood and more complex, orchestral arrangements, from "Irish Blood, English Heart" to recent cuts from "Ringleader Of Tormentors". Between one quip and another, he introduces a new catchphrase: "Merci-Mor-ris-sey said merci".

He runs over the set curfew of 11:15pm, cutting into everyone's mad dash to catch the last metro. A guy next to me yells "Take your shirt off". For a moment I feel right at home. He mimes a machine-gun gesture, alluding to the risk of a police raid, then a hanging gesture too, but, gratified by the crowd's affection, he grants one last treat, "Now My Heart Is Full". Ours too.

August 26

If the previous day was already hard to make sense of, without even a sellout crowd, just imagine the infernal crush awaiting on the festival's closing night, already sold out for at least three months. When it starts to drizzle I'm still hanging around Notre Dame, not in search of some spiritual calm but purely by chance. It's two o'clock - better get moving in time. The usual crowd, a mix of green wristbands for those without a full pass and fuchsia ones for the die-hards, or for the clueless latecomers who couldn't get a ticket for just the one night. More flyers, more earplugs (they'll come in handy...).

Watching the incredible variety of Radiohead t-shirts is like retracing the band's history from "Pablo Honey" all the way to "Hail To The Thief". There's no denying it: they're the stars of the night. It's the only French date of this strange tour which, offering tasters of tracks from the mysterious seventh album in the works and largely skipping Yorke's solo output, has criss-crossed the United States and toured Europe less thoroughly, bypassing Italy, Germany and Spain. No offence meant to Editors and the Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra (doomed to play at the same time as the headliners), nor to Rakes, Xavier Rudd, Skin and Rhesus, who won't feature in this report, but as the gates open there's just enough time for a quick stop by Broken Social Scene - unfairly relegated to early-afternoon support slot - before heading to stake out a spot near the main stage.

Everyone seems to have lost interest in the other stages. In under an hour such a crush builds up that it's impossible to move backwards or sideways. The straw cleverly laid down on the grass keeps anyone from sinking all the way to the Seine, in the mud mixed with quicksand-like sludge brought on by the rain, lending the whole thing a rough-and-ready late-1960s festival vibe. Misfortunes never come alone: as if the sonic torture of Taking Back Sunday (colored earplugs are a godsend) - pointless exponents of the American punk/emo scene, throwing in ideas lifted from the worst of Aerosmith and winks at Bon Jovi - weren't enough, the rain starts pouring down hard and relentless. The crowd, save for the ever-shrinking pack of diehard fans, looks thoroughly baffled but, in a spirit of tolerance, settles for sniggering at the pitiful sight of the frontman spending an hour trying to wrap the microphone cable around himself.

A sickly, wintry-looking sun pops out. And luckily, next up are Phoenix, prophets in their own land. Sure, they're playing at home, but their cocktail of funk, brit-pop and dance, strung together in a seamless run of songs with barely a pause, makes the set glide by effortlessly. Plenty of style, simple but effective melodies. There's no shortage of fun either, when after the day's most dancefloor-ready moment (the radio-friendly "If I Ever Feel Better"), Thomas Mars launches himself into the crowd in a tongue-in-cheek bit of crowd-surfing. There's barely time to catch a breath before young English band Dead 60's leap onto the stage, jolting the afternoon with an anarchic, riotous energy. As much the children of Clash as of Gang Of Four, they stand out from the uncontrolled wave of 80s-revival specialists thanks to crucial dub and reggae contaminations, never more necessary than after the driving "Riot Radio", helping to calm a crowd that's anything but "French". Plenty of personality, admittedly a bit too derivative, but they gain a lot live.

Beck, who has supported the Oxford band on many tour dates, faces the tough job of keeping in check a crowd already deep in Radiohead-mode (just playing "2+2=5" in the stage-setup background playlist is enough to send everyone into a frenzy). Four tireless puppeteers spend an hour and a half controlling puppets decked out like the wildly colourful band of the shambling Californian singer-songwriter, mirroring every single move. It's the puppets who open the way, with "Loser", for the real band. It's an initially aggressive set, running from "Minus" to "Devil's Haircut" through to more recent tracks, the sprawling "E-Pro" and "Black Tambourine", not forgetting brand new songs from the album in progress, chief among them the jittery rhythm of "Nausea". There's no shortage of an unplugged moment either (an exceptional medley of "Golden Age", "Lost Cause" and the classics "Whiskeyclone, Hotel City 1997" and "Pay No Mind", from "Mellow Gold"), with the band members seated around a table eating, accompanying Beck with forks and glasses. During the break before the encore, while off to the side of the stage Mrs. Hansen shows off little Cosimo, looking anything but thrilled by the crowd, a video projected on the screens shows the puppets' escapades around Paris - group wees in front of monuments, all sorts of candid moments, chaos wreaked in a hotel room, and failed attempts to sneak into Radiohead's dressing room to the tune of "This is what you get when you mess with us". He then comes back on stage dressed as a bear, just like the old days. "Where it's at?". A show to remember.

Night falls. The crush becomes unbearable, but the long wait for the festival's headline event, with the inevitable reggae playing in the background as decreed by Jonny Greenwood, is rewarded with a stunning opener: "Airbag", made even more anguished and raw by Thom Yorke's not-yet-warmed-up voice. The stage set consists of a series of angular screens onto which fleeting, tightly edited shots of the five band members are projected. Anyone stuck behind the giant screens will make out very little. Anyone hoping for a setlist packed with surprises will soon be disappointed: it takes six songs to get to the first two unreleased tracks. The melancholic "Videotape", a dialogue between a piano and a voice both pained and resigned, builds towards a crescendo that seems ready to explode at any moment but instead dies out almost suddenly, followed by "Nude" (already known as "Big Ideas", dating back to the "Ok Computer" era), a bare, minimal ballad that leaves you holding your breath.

In the alternation between past and future comes "All I Need", a bleak, hopeless slice of soul softened by Jonny Greenwood's xylophone, as versatile as ever, alongside two of "The Bends"'s most energetic, festival-ready moments - the anthemic title track and "My Iron Lung" - not to mention five spine-chilling minutes of a whispered "Fake Plastic Trees" accompanied by a chilling silence. Every song is its own little piece of history. The classics aren't missing either, with "Paranoid Android" and "Lucky" sending the crowd into a collective trance. It goes from the claustrophobic futurism of "The National Anthem" to the unstoppable rhythms of "I Might Be Wrong" and "Idioteque", where Thom breaks into his classic, jittery, half-deranged dance moves, through to the symphonic grace of masterpieces such as "Morning Bell" and "Pyramid Song" (with the novelty of Jonny playing guitar Sigur Rós-style, complete with a violin bow).

The concert closes with "Everything In Its Right Place", opened by a spare echo of "True Love Waits" rearranged on the toy piano, before opening back up, in a key moment, with "You And Whose Army?". The bizarre front-on shot of Yorke's grimaces at the piano, focused and utterly lost in the most old-fashioned melody the band has ever written, sends the crowd into fits of laughter. Everyone on stage is laughing too, even the two human metronomes, Phil Selway and Colin Greenwood. There's room for one more unreleased track, the punk-wave rush of the restless "Bodysnatchers", driven by Ed's syncopated guitar. A perfect "There There" sets the stage for "Karma Police", the perfect singalong moment for the band's exit. Sixty thousand souls lost in the chorus "For a minute there I lost myself". The curtain falls. And you're left, right away, to live with that indescribable sense of emptiness... Radiohead.

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