Les Femmes S’en Mêlent is a festival showcasing the talents of independent female artists from France and around the world. The main programme, taking place in Paris between Tuesday March 20th and Friday March 30th, features acts such as Still Corners, My Brightest Diamond and Giana Factory. There are plenty of shows at a various venues around the city, but in the event that you live outside of Paris and its peripheries the LFSM tour is on the road all around France. On Thursday night it made a stop in Alsace.
La Laiterie in Strasbourg played host to the dazzling girl-group inspired dream-pop of Dum Dum Girls. The Lo-fi Californian rockers headlined the show with support from the aforementioned Giana Factory. The Danish trio opened the show, the crowd was initially sparse and rather staid, but grew during the set. The audience was eventually drawn in by the driving percussive beats that underpinned almost the entire set counter-balancing the psychedelic gloom that typifies much of the band’s music and preventing things from becoming too dreary. Still a palpable distance between band and public persisted throughout the performance.
Headliners Dum Dum Girls were received by a substantially larger crowd. The quartet played tracks from their most recent album as well as older material and even included a brand new tune. The album tracks sounded harder and more aggressive than their album counterparts, the added energy helped to engage the crowd. The atmosphere built over the course of about a dozen songs, but sadly it was all rather anti-climatic in the end. The audience seemed confused and disappointed as the house lights went up and the stereo came on, there was no encore from the main act. A stunning example of the top-shelf rock music being produced by young women cut-short tonight, leaving the fans in Strasbourg wanting more.
The cross-country tour continues until April 1st including stops in Metz, Lyon and Grenoble. For more info and complete dates visit: www.lfsm.net
Nikita Oliver-Lew
A Shot in the Dark 