Cité de la Musique

  Located just inside the Porte de Pantin at 211 Avenue Jean Jaures in the 19th Arrondissement of Paris, the Parc de la Villette (with the ‘Cité de la Musique’ situated at the forefront), is a huge entertainment complex with numerous entertainment venues, the most famous being the mighty concert arena ‘The Zenith’. However, describing this huge space, filled with great lawns, endless tree-lined pathways, bridges, walkways and fountains, in a term as clinical as ‘entertainment complex’ somehow doesn’t seem good enough. The contrast between the huge Avenue Jean Jaures as it reaches the Porte de Pantin and the Parc de la Villette is stunning, especially on a beautiful day. The avenue is grey, choc-a-bloc with traffic heading to and from the Paris entry point, and filled with all the noise and pollution you can imagine at one of the doors of one of the busiest cities on earth. Luckily, if you get off the Métro at Porte de Pantin (Line 5), you come out right by the Parc de la Villette and move straight into the huge area by the Cite de la Musique, the place de la Fontaine aux Lions, according to one nice lady (although the ‘lions’ looked more like dogs to me). To the right, crowds sit at little tables having tall, cool drinks served to them as they watch the children and the more energetic adults ride bicycles and play games around the huge fountain. The sense of space and freedom is immediate, as is the sense of fun. Moving down the tree-lined pathways, families fill the huge lawns: water-fights, games of soccer, Frisbee-throwing. Children yelling and screaming, expressing an as yet limitless joy in the sun. Little picnics here and there. Beautiful and idyllic. All I knew at this point was that the ‘Sunday School’ event was to be held on the last Sunday of every month at the hip little Trabendo club, located somewhere just in front of the Zenith, according to the helpful grid-maps set up throughout the Parc. The event, described as a ‘chillout’, offering a ‘cool but friendly, cutting edge family event’, seemed odd. The mixing of kids with hard-core cool; the setting loose of dedicated clubbers at a family outing; the squeezing of the generation gap into a small space and yelling, ‘Have fun!’ before slamming shut the door, seemed bizarre. So I was eager to check it out. As I approached the Zenith, I didn’t see any sign of The Trabendo, so I took off up some steps and across a walkway. Looking down from there, it dawned on me that I was standing on top of it. Doh! So I descended the next set of steps and made for the door. The event officially opens at 4.30pm and closes at 12.30am. The prices at the door (as opposed to on some of the adverts), go as follows: 7 euros for none regulars, 5 euros for regulars; 10 euros after 7.30pm. Children free. Drinks move up from around 3 euros. The Trabendo is small, painted dark brown inside with African designs. The main dance-floor is a level down when you enter, with the main stage at one end and rows of tables at the other. The bar is down the steps and over to the left of the room. The DJ was doing his stuff when I entered at around 7.00pm and the first thing I noticed was that the equipment on the stage—sound-system, mixing system, guitars, bass, large drum-kit—were all high-quality and smacked of a professional set-up. Kids and dancers were at it already, although the place was quiet. I guessed that the greater number of ticket-holders were still outside, taking advantage of the lawns and the beautiful day. The family atmosphere took me by surprise. All those cool hipsters smiling and laughing, letting the kids show them how it was done. Families relaxed at their tables, watching and smiling. All at once people starting filing in, in all shapes, sizes, colours, cultures, most with kids in tow, and just in time to see a choreographed hip-hop dance session take place on the dance-floor: the girl dancers in almost knee-length red T-shirts, the guys in similarly long white shirts. The music was good, upbeat, Jazzfunk, inspiring the dancers to twist and contort their bodies in ways that helped me come to terms with my own limitations. The huge numbers of kids on the sidelines however, simply copied them. But when a group called ‘Spoken Crew’ came on, led by a guy who made the simple act of shuffling up and down seem very cool (which gave me hope), the place very quickly became crowded and the noise level went up, the lights went down, and the kids were either straddled across shoulders or encouraged to do their thing on the side-lines or on the tables. The music, again, was full on funk, totally positive, and the ‘Spoken Crew’ singer had a great joy-filled voice. It was a professional sound, too, whereas, to be honest, I had expected a lot of enthusiastic amateurs. I was getting value for money, and I love when that happens. After Spoken Crew, which I thought would be a hard act to follow, a whole series of singers and groups came on, one after the other, performing only one or two songs each, and each somehow surpassing the last. It would be difficult to exaggerate how surprised I was by the levels of professionalism and sheer talent that was on offer here. I couldn’t catch most of their names, they came and went so fast. The programme said only: ‘A selection of young talent’, which could be put forward as the understatement of the Events year. One cool solo artist, a singer called Lisa came on after a wild rap session and sang a song so soulful, so low and quiet, that the audience were held spellbound, hanging on her every agonised emotion; then she started building, working it, taking us there. We didn’t need a grid-map to find the way. Three girls appeared, singing, laughing and dancing, the lead singer with vocals so powerful she almost took the roof off, whilst one of the others, a young, round-eyed, dark-skinned version of Britney Spears, but with talent, all but matched her as she laughed and smiled to her singing partner, who just winked back, knowing they had control. The audience went wild and it really was hard for…