It's Friday afternoon, and summer is bursting in the capital of Gaul. At least for a few hours the bad weather has broken, and after yet another week of adhesive chemistry, a random trip to the suburb crowded with hippies, campers, and teenagers (strictly with a tuft and indie uniform) seems like the only possible solution to end it beautifully.

I couldn't miss the last collective madness bath before my return to the City of Flowers. Could I? I couldn't.

It had been a long time since I'd been to a festival, and I was no longer prepared for certain harsh realities: two hours of waiting in line for ticket checks, one of which under the sun, until the moving mass of zombies pushed me into the providential shade of a row of trees. Several times I was seriously tempted to turn on my heels and leave, thinking that thirty minutes of Brooklyn trendsetters couldn't possibly be worth all that effort.

And yet...

Once past the entrance odyssey, the Solidays Festival presents itself as the ideal environment to spend a summer afternoon: most of the concerts are held under circus tents, shaded and well ventilated. The audience alternately fills and empties the area, and the short hour between one concert and the next allows you to rest, save a spot for the next show, gorge on beer and fries, go to the bathroom, in short, all the recreational activities worthy of that name.

While I recover from the sunstroke, I have plenty of time to observe with amused detachment the concerts of Xavier Rudd and Micky Green. I'll be brief: Rudd seemed to me like the Australian Zucchero, but I acknowledge his brilliant look as a fat Indiana Jones. The blonde, on the other hand, is a very pretty and nice girl who makes rather classic pop music, with the exception of some minimal guitar parts played on a Squier Hello Kitty which, paired with her sexy hostess outfit, made her a porn-demential figure (hence, excellent).

But let's get to the meat. The Vampires arrive fifteen minutes late, giving the usual screaming girls time to warm up and charge their hormones well. Finally, here they are, with a look of an American student from the late '80s early '90s. Pimply like Alex Turner, but very, very USA, instead of UK.

The basic setup is very simple: a relatively modest Epiphone Sheraton on a Fender Reissue Blues, demonstrating (if there was still any need) that you don't need a '55 Broadcaster or a '65 Coronet and a '68 Vox to be cool and have great sounds. No pedals, no effects, everything very simple, just decidedly pretty guitar parts. Add a punchy bass played very well and not at all obvious (no barges, as unfortunately for too many bands, especially live) and a tight drum, and you're set. A couple of keyboards, alternated or combined with the guitar, complete the work, unleashing appropriate and fast melodies of a classical stamp, a nice contrast to the vaguely Afro sounds of the guitar and some vocal parts.

Without considering too much the excessive hype that accompanied them, and ignoring the rib fracture caused to me by a frantic French fat woman, I can calmly say that the four play well, they are very fresh and full of energy, and you can sing and dance to their songs with great pleasure, even if you are a bald nearing 30. Really, even with all the cynicism and acidity in this world, it cannot be denied that they performed a handful of simple but fun songs, naturally derivative (two names come to mind: Police and Jonathan Richman) but with a personal touch, which is all you can ask of today's rock-pop-punk-etc (I correct myself: of all time). If you're looking for the tormented, serious, possibly nerd attitude, then it wasn't the concert for you.

The setlist included the entire first (and only) album and a new track, already present in live version on YouTube, which follows the same lines as the others. In this sense, the only flaw I can find in the VW's music is the risk of becoming repetitive by the second album. At the moment the mix of pieces with Afro influences and other more pop ones works excellently, we'll see in the future.

With all due respect to "alternative" French music, regularly swept away in just over an hour by four New York kids, I feel I can recommend you to attend one of their concerts, if you get the chance. But only one: the spell might not last.

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