French festival loads up on roots

• Journalist points to a separation between dancehall and its predecessor

Mel Cooke, Gleaner Writer

The line-up for the 2011 Garance Reggae Festival, which takes place in Bagnols-sur-Ceze in the south of France from July 27 to 30, reads like a roots reggae lovers fantasy concert.

Among the Jamaican performers are Burning Spear, Jimmy Cliff, Third World, Gyptian, Sly and Robbie featuring Jr Reid, Tony Rebel, Queen Ifrica, Junior Kelly, Lutan Fyah, The Abyssinians, The Twinkle Brothers, Pressure, Protoje, Dawn Penn, Junior Kelly, Winston Francis, Lone Ranger, Willie Williams, Horace Andy and Carlton Livingstone. King Jammy's is one of the sound systems that will play in the four-day festival's 'Dub Station Corner'.

In an email interview, Benoit Georges, a French journalist with reggaefrance.com who is doing press work for the festival, said Garance started in 1989 as an indoor event held in Paris and has been cancelled twice since its inception. Going outdoors is new for Garance, as it was relocated to the open-air setting in the south of France last year.

The move seems to have borne fruit in overall attendance, as Georges said the indoor edition peaked at the end of the 1990s with two concert nights at the Bercy multi-sport arena, with 17,000 persons each night. Last year's first outdoor staging pulled 35,000 attendees over four days. The 2010 line-up included Charlie Chaplin, Brigadier Jerry, John Holt, Tarrus Riley, Barrington Levy, Bunny Wailer, Jah Cure and Luciano.

Expected turnout

With this year's line-up, Georges says 50,000 people are expected to attend. This is at an entry fee of US$50 per day and US$142 USD for a four-day pass, which "is a reasonable price for France".

The Jamaicans on the line-up are predominantly from the older generation and Georges says "Garance Productions is responsible for the booking and artistes selection. It is deliberately a roots and old school selection. From a Jamaican point of view, it seems in fact timeless".

There was an attempt to include the sound currently dominating the airwaves and parties in Jamaica, as Georges said "we, as Reggaefrance, tried to do some lobbying to have a genuine dancehall night, but Garance preferred to rely on veteran artistes, as they usually do." This is based on several reasons, among them the history and culture of Garance. Georges said "Garance's boss, Gerard Michel, has been historically promoting reggae in France since the '80s. He opened the door to European stages to a lot of roots artistes like Burning Spear, Culture, Israel Vibration, Alpha Blondy, The Gladiators and Toots and has very close links with artistes from this generation. That's partly why roots reggae has a large audience in France and that's also why Garance is not much into promoting upcoming artistes nor following Jamaican trends."

However, there is also the appeal of the music itself. Georges said as far "as Jamaican music is concerned, there are different profiles of fans in France. Reggae is appealing to teenagers and young people but mostly on the roots side, whereas dancehall is very popular amongst the sound systems' fans and the West Indian community. French people from Africa tend to be more into roots music. It is true to say that there is a majority of roots fans in France. For the same reason, the sound systems area in the festival features a lot of dub sounds and no recent juggling sounds."

Issues with dancehall

Then there are the issues with dancehall. Georges says "a lot of people, including professionals, are putting boundaries between reggae and dancehall. Dancehall has a 'street' image - and for those people that means a negative one. Big promoters are not very comfortable with the audience dancehall may attract, they would leave it to others (including us Reggaefrance as we are also branding some shows), and if you add the recent gay controversy and the fact that some artistes are hard to deal with when you don't have a foot in Jamaica, you get the answer."

This has led to at least one stutter in the Garance line-up, as Georges said "Mavado was planned last year for the festival and Garance was not able to secure the deal. His name was on the poster, however, so that was a huge disappointment."