Friday, May 18, 2007

Can Paris party?

Every one agrees. Paris is a global city and one of the world’s most dynamic, whether it be for architecture, culture, cinema, theater, fashion and some would say, party. From electro temples to indie-rock bars, from gypsy festivals to impromptu jazz gigs, Paris has it all. You can spend the first part of the evening in Abesses listening to a seventy year old French singer mumbling words of Edith Piaf, then head to a trendy rock concert around the canal st Martin, incidentally find yourself taken to an ultra select club in Western Paris and end up dancing to drum and base in a converted bus station right off the Périphérique. And anyone who has a name, from Seattle’s latest grunge band to Berlin’s minimal rising star, has Paris’ venues on top of his European touring agenda. No question, you can see anything here. But watch and listen is often all you do.

Though London and Berlin’s diversity are slight in comparison to Paris’, the city of lights seems to have lost verve and cool. The next working day often takes over the present fun. Parisians watch but don’t play and count the hours before the alarm clock will ring or the minutes before the famous last metro.Take any Sunday evening. Apart from Ullmann doing his karaorocke show at ultra select club le Baron, where only a lucky few will eventually get in, or the Flèche d’or occasionally hosting Sunday gigs, the city is void of any action. Meanwhile, across the channel, the disco-queer boombox party is rocking Hoxton bar and Berlin’s Moskau café is having that after after party for serious clubbers. Both parties have nothing in common other than decadence and total debauchery. The Boombox, though more often than not associated with lousy music is more fun than any club event you could think of with boys and girls or girls and boys finishing the night half dressed, fully drunk and totally out of their minds. Moskau has a chic edge to it. Take the glamour of a channel fashion show after party without the buzz and the hype surrounding it. What’s missing in Paris nightlife? For the first part, a fashion-party spirit that hasn’t the words vip guestlist spelled to it. And a general willingness to let it loose and have a good time.

Though you won’t find Berlin’s panorama bar freaks at the Paris Paris or Maxim’s, all is not quite lost just yet. Look away from the clubs and towards punctual party organizers and word of mouth. The most established are perhaps the “we love” parties, taking place every several months in an unconventional location in or around Paris such as a giant swimming pool, a wedding room in the nearby forest or the futuristic Cité de la sciences at the Vilette park. Massive crowds make the trip to the suburbs for the party and the electro DJ lineup. However, with a twenty euro entry and additional tenner for a beer, the crowd is rather euro-trash prude jeunesse dorée than dancing machine. Picture cute but prude girls quietly waiting by the restrooms with their Dior bags and the guys trying failed pick-up moves with their white shirts and polo outfit. You call that a rave? Another group, Dimuschi, rely exclusively on word of mouth hoping for more spontaneous behavior. The parties take place twice a year in some odd places, be they parking lots, warehouses or the catacombs. Lastly, les ambassadeurs have their yearly frantic party. And with a trash-glamour, decadent chic and incredibly hip atmosphere, this is what resembles most those London or Berlin nights. But it’s once a year only. So for the fun, just get yourself an easyjet ticket to the party scene.

Boombox
www.myspace.com/familylondon

We love art
http:www.weloveart.net

Dimuschi
http://www.dimuschi.com/

Les Ambassadeurs
http://www.lesambassadeurs.org/

About Me

an opinionated guide to alternative nightlife and urban culture. what else?