Polo & Pan will remember their summer of 2022. After making Les Vieilles Charrues dance, the French electro duo, known for their smooth and languid
hit Canopée
, is heading back to the USA where their fame is growing visibly.
"We arrive at the right time at the Vieilles Charrues, with a good maturity in our show",
explains Polo (Paul Armand-Delille), two hours before going on stage, on the night of Sunday July 17 to Monday July 18.
"Our songs are escapes, poetic journeys, we weren't necessarily stage beasts at the start, but we know that faced with 70,000 people, we have to embody more to reach the peak together, like in a ceremony, with a shaman side”,
continues the Franco-American musician.
Demonstration on stage, where Polo will perform in a guru-cool toga that would not have looked out of place in the San Francisco hippie community of the 1960s. Pan (Alexandre Grynszpan), dressed all in white, seems to have come out of one of the famous parties given on the Côte d'Azur in the 1970s by the French producer Eddie Barclay.
Accompanied on a few tracks by Victoria Lafaurie, performer-dancer and co-creator of certain titles, the duo take turns singing when they are not adding keyboards or sound effects to their tracks.
Behind them, animated 1970s-inspired psyche-pop images parade on giant screens.
soft techno
The two DJ-producers, in their thirties who met ten years ago in a Parisian club, alternate between calm beaches - with accents à la Henry Mancini (composer of the music for
The Pink Panther
), Beach Boys, bossa nova - and more incisive sequences.
The duo draws from their two albums
Caravelle
(2017) and
Cyclorama
(2021) for their set, and the public will sing along to passages from their hit
Canopée
.
“At the festival, we like to have electro artists, in all styles. Polo & Pan, their own touch, is soft techno, but sharp under its flowery side”,
synthesizes Jeanne Rucet, programmer of the Vieilles Charrues.
The formula does not appeal only in France and Polo & Pan can claim an international career, particularly in the United States.
From the end of July, they leave for an American tour.
"It's the fruit of France's influence with what others, and I'm not talking only about the French Touch, have done in music before us,"
comments Pan.
“do not sanctify”
They also plowed the American ground for years, leaving just with their
"rucksack",
as Polo says, playing in rooms of 300 people, initially filled with French expatriates.
Then, they
“heard more and more English spoken”
at their concerts.
A stint in 2019 at Coachella, a renowned Californian festival, propelled them into another dimension.
With laudatory articles in the specialized American media (
Billboard
) or generalists (
The New Yorker
) at stake.
Their first post-health crisis show was done in Brooklyn – two full evenings in December 2021 –
“in front of an audience who encouraged us in English,
"go ahead, even if you make mistakes, it doesn't matter!"
»,
laughs Pan.
In August, they will pass by the room of Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, in headlining.
“It will potentially be one of the greatest moments for us, but we will try not to make it too sacred beforehand,”
adds Pan.
“We will try not to put pressure on ourselves, sometimes we put enormous stress on ourselves, for an Olympia for example.
You have to keep a cool head, enjoy, ”
engages Polo.
Who ends up all the same by letting go:
“It's a thing of
“phew”.
»
