In 1998, France was world football champion and electronic music scored another “victory”, with the first Techno Parade in Paris, as Tommy Vaudecrane, president of Technopol, the organizing association, said. Meet on Saturday for a route between Place de la Bastille, from noon, and Place de la Nation, sound cut off at 7 p.m., in the wake of 16 floats (compared to around ten in normal times) carrying DJs and turntables for this 25th anniversary.
Like the tank of the Heretik System collective, pillar of the underground scene. Impossible to name all the artists announced but names stand out like Maud Geffray, winner of the best soundtrack for Split at the Séries Mania 2023 festival, associated with RAG, DJ and artistic director of the queer and feminist collective Barbi(e)turix. “If we attract 400,000 people, we will be delighted. It’s a free event, accessible to everyone, without discrimination, while people go out less because they are counting their budget in these times of inflation,” Tommy Vaudecrane describes for AFP.
Also read First Techno Parade in 1998: “the trance was not there”
On September 19, 1998, this musician under the alias DJ AK47 was in the parade along the six-kilometer route and remembered a finale in the form of a “giant rave party” with 200,000 people at Place de la Nation. “1998 was a great year, the first Techno Parade was a victory for electronic music recognized among current music, integrating itself into the landscape,” he recalls.
Electro culture then won an important round: three years earlier, a circular from the Minister of the Interior Charles Pasqua demonized it. And Tommy Vaudecrane to “pay homage” to Jack Lang. The former Minister of Culture had convinced the Minister of the Interior at the time, Jean-Pierre Chevènement, the Minister of Culture, Catherine Trautmann, as well as the Mayor of Paris, Jean Tibéri. Two months earlier, Jack Lang had attended the Love Parade in Berlin, inspiration for the Techno Parade, in the company of Henri Maurel, president of Radio FG, emblematic figure and promoter of techno in France.
In September 1998 in Paris, French DJs like Laurent Garnier or Manu le Malin, American DJs like Jeff Mills or British DJs like Carl Cox made the crowd vibrate in front of the cameras. Techno comes out of the shadows and illegal parties in France. “Even DJs with more alternative aesthetics started to get paid to play and hardcore techno CDs were at Fnac. We could never have imagined this in the early 1990s,” summarizes the president of Technopol.
“The bad label that we are given sometimes comes back. When we put on a festival, we can hear: “Oh the druggies, the punks with dogs”, even if more and more people understand that these demonstrations have an impact on tourism and the local economy”, depicts Tommy Vaudecrane. Electronic music is taking root. Last weekend, the Dream Nation festival celebrated its tenth anniversary in the Paris region, with a program focused on the most alternative branches of the electro family, such as drum
Also read: Laurent Garnier, return to the journey of a gifted DJ
But the health crisis has reminded us that the electro sphere, forgotten in official speeches at the heart of the storm, continues its fight for recognition. “Our message today is to make structures and institutions understand that the support systems and measures in place for other current music are not always adapted to our specificities,” underlines the president of Technopol. And to detail: “We do not have the same time ranges. When the other concerts end, we start our evenings and, another example, the intermittent regime is not totally adapted to DJs and electronic music producers with limited opportunities at the start of their careers.