For this 29th edition of the Blues festival around the Beauvais zinc, which begins this Friday at 8:30 p.m. with Benjamin Biolay's concert at the Elispace (25 euros per seat), the preparation was special for Laurent Macimba, the creator and director artistic.
“It’s true that it was a little special because I prepared it while starting to work on the 30th edition,” he confesses.
I have already put some options for 2025 but I had an obligation to have headliners this year.
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For this 2024 edition, Benjamin Biolay and Keziah Jones will play the leading roles.
However, the first one doesn't really sound blues.
“I know and it was pointed out to me,” he admits.
I understand people's arguments but it's always beneficial to program an artist of this talent in Beauvais.
It’s an opportunity to enrich your musical culture.
We need to get away from the somewhat fixed image of the blues.
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“You have to be curious”
When he knew that Benjamin Biolay was going on tour, Laurent Marimba came forward.
“In this case, the luck factor comes into play,” he confides.
For him, it happened quickly.
» For Keziah Jones, it was the artistic director who brought about the luck.
“We are the ones who started his artistic tour and I am quite proud of it,” he says.
I've been trying to get him to come for four years.
It's a reference and we offered him the closing of the festival.
He accepted and his manager set up a tour from his Beauvais date.
» All places are already taken
The arrival of the FFF group (French Federation of Fonck), this Saturday, still at Elispace, is another highlight of the festival.
“It’s all my youth,” says Laurent Macimba.
The first time I saw them was in 1991 in Saint-Quentin (Aisne) at the Devenir festival, one of the benchmarks for rock festivals in Picardy.
When I heard they were getting back together 23 years later, I jumped on it.
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Also read: From Ray Charles to Charlie Winston, how the Blues around zinc became an unmissable festival
Other events await festival-goers with lesser-known artists but whom the organizers want to highlight.
“Like Jalen Ngonda, Thursday March 21 at the Maladrerie Saint-Lazare,” announces Laurent Macimba.
He is not known and, programmed alone, he would have attracted only around fifty people as he comes out of a triumphant tour in England.
You have to be curious, it's worth the trip.
The opportunity to also discover James Oliver Band who plays American rock from the 1950s like no other.
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It's an Irish group, Crow Black Chicken, opening act on the latest ZZ Top tour, which will promote the blues in eight colleges in the department with a new feature, a question-and-answer session in English with the college students after the concert. .
www.zincblues.com