Twenty-one hours. The sun beat all day on the heads of the festival-goers. The four female artists of the afternoon took turns on the main stage. All that remains is to wait. Waiting for Billie Eilish, the American headliner, fans have been doing it all day. Some even camped in front of the entrance to the Parc de Saint Cloud for several days in a row to secure a place in the front row. “It had never happened to us in such proportions”, confides Matthieu Ducos, the director of the festival. It’s hard to keep your place without being jostled by teenagers ready to do anything to post the closest photo of Billie on their Instagram account. One hour from the concert, no one dares to leave their square meter of lawn, even for a glass of water or a trip to the toilet. But dehydration cost some festival-goers far more than a front-row seat. Security even had to evacuate a dozen of them following discomfort.
What could be better than celebrating your birthday with one of the biggest pop stars around? Probably nothing. And it’s not Rock en Seine that will say the opposite. To celebrate its 20th anniversary, the festival offered itself a gift of 1.5 million euros. Young Billie Eilish. “She is an artist of the new generation who impresses because at only 21 she has a very rich career, underlines Matthieu Ducos. She has already sung for the soundtrack of a James Bond while for many, it is the consecration in a career. Twenty-one is almost the age of the festival. Enough to give a facelift to this major meeting of contemporary music in France. And of the 40,000 people present last night, “there were a lot of young people, much more than usual”, continues the director.
To believe that the young French fans did not have enough during Billie’s last visit to the concert for the planet organized by the NGO Global Citizen at the foot of the Eiffel Tower, on June 23. For good reason, she had only sung three songs, in a more “folk” format. But this time, they were not disappointed. The superstar, crowned seven times at the Grammy Awards, tumbles dressed in leggings and an American football t-shirt, at 10 p.m. sharp, the time of his performance. She is accompanied only by two musicians including her brother Finneas, already well known to the general public for his collaborations with his younger sister, for whom he is a producer. For his part, he also leads a solo career, including an EP and an album.
The American with 72 million listeners on Spotify makes her debut on Bury a Friend, one of her most macabre hits. What immediately announce the color. My strange addiction, Therefore I am, All the good girls go to hell, Oxyctocin… the titles follow one after the other with elegance and fluidity. At her hour and a half show, Billie was able to integrate her saddest ballads, under the tearful eyes of her audience. Among them, idontwannabeyouanymore, Ocean Eyes and Bellyache, three tracks excluded from her first EP, released in 2017. The melody What was I made For ? list. The song allowed Billie to climb to the top of the charts all summer. Between two hits, the singer, very committed to the environment, delivered her usual speech on global warming. “No music on a dead planet”, could be read on the giant screen.
Billie covers on a song she dedicated to her brother, called Everything I wanted. A firework is fired on Happier than ever, title which counts more than a billion plays on Spotify. It is finally with Goodbye, taken from her album When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?, that the singer bids farewell to the public. But it’s only goodbye. Because Billie and her brother have not finished making their audience scream and cry. “This afternoon, we were discussing about… you know, the new album… But don’t get carried away,” she says with a big smile. On this good news, the evening comes to an end, leaving the spectators – eager to know more – unsatisfied.
