Fete de la musique

The 33rd edition of Fete de la Musique took place Saturday, June 21, providing more than 100 different events, with music for all ages and backgrounds, all of which were free to the public.

Fete de la Musique is a music festival that takes place on the streets of Paris and other parts of France. Every year, the festival takes place on June 21, the summer solstice, marking the first day of summer in the northern hemisphere.

Musicians play for free in large open areas such as streets, parks, metro stations and museums. Fete de la Musique encourages artists to play outside their usual environments, expand their audiences, and provide exchanges between young musicians and well-known talents.

This “day of music” allows for the expression of all types of music, ranging from classical to hip-hop and from pop to electronic. Artists range from local and unknown to major headliners. This year, the major headliner was Lana Del Ray.

Launched in 1982 by the French Ministry of Culture, Fete de la Musique works to popularize musical practices for people of all ages and social backgrounds. Now, this event has spread to more than 100 countries in Europe and across the globe, each with their own cultural music festivities (all on June 21).

With all the hype about Fete de la Musique, you’d think the events would be really easy to find. Maybe, because of the certain events that I was looking for or the fact that I don’t know my way around Paris just yet, I had a drastically hard time finding anything, at least during the day.

I spent the first part of my day looking for a free party in Boulogne-Billancourt, which I never found. After hours of walking, I decided to move on and try to find the next one. Twenty-two metro stops later, I traveled for about an hour and a half looking for the next party, which turned out to be nothing more than a small band playing in front of a bank. Not that it wasn’t fun, it just wasn’t what I was looking for (or expecting).

Let me put it this way; I left my house around 3:00 p.m. and it wasn’t until about 9:00 p.m. that I decided to sit down, rest and use the Wi-Fi at a local cafe. Lucky for me, I was able to connect with a distant relative who gave me his exact GPS coordinates and told me to come find him. Although frustrated and exhausted, I was determined to find at least one party, so I left and made my last attempt to find something before giving up and going home.

Finally, around 10:00p.m. I found my relative and a pretty bad-ass Fete de la Musique party! I’m a huge fan of electronic music and dubstep, which just happened to be the exact type of music that was playing. We stayed for a couple of hours, dancing and jamming out, before heading to three more events!

So, my night turned out much better than my day. I hung out with my relative and his friends (all French) and wound up having an exceptionally good time! I couldn’t tell you exactly where I was, but I was able to explore different areas of Paris that I’d never been to before. The music (once I found it) was awesome and overall, the festival was a blast! Now, if only the United States could pick up on the event and start its own Fete de la Musique, then Americans could enjoy this same joyous event and phenomenal atmosphere!

Check out the videos below (P.S. Sorry for the VERY bad audio/video quality…but you get the idea)!

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Click here!

Here!

And Here!