La Fête de la Musique: High Love Roots weave Caribbean magic on the Med
June 21, 2024
Tonight - June 21 2024 - the annual Fête de la Musique brings free live music to bars, streets, parks and beaches all over France. It’s a great celebration of entertainment introduced in 1981 by Jack Lang, then the French culture minister. Chapeau Jack, now 80+ but still beavering away as president of the Institut du Monde Arabe.
Among the fun I’ll be missing because of my delayed return to France is Higj Love Roots - reggae but relevant - at La Bonne Aventure in Cavalière. I’ll leave mischief makers to guess what ‘High’ could possibly refer to. NB: band personnel may have changed since this first appeared two years ago …
Daddy is Seb Nesta and Daddy is cool.
He's the charismatic lead singer of a wonderful reggae, rap and roots band that can be heard making pulsating music around the French resort of Le Lavandou this summer.
High Love Roots are so good, bursting with raw energy and clearly having a good time, that you can almost forget that more than half those who bothered to vote here in recent legislative elections shamefully opted for Marine Le Pen's extreme rightwing Rassemblement National.
Salut! Live is meant to be a folk site but most people who love folk like other forms of music, too. And anyway, HLR - not to be confused with the High Level Ranters - has roots in its title.
We've caught them twice at the Balto, a bar next door to the mairie. It has a terrace, part of which serves as a stage for live music, and is fast becoming one the best venues in town.
The High Love Roots band calls itself a collective and you easily see why.
Everyone plays an important part. Nesta's co-singer, Loic, makes vital, punchy vocal contributions and could easily front a band himself. There is excellent accompaniment from the rhythm guitarist, bassist and keyboard player and Mehdi is, like Ginger Baker, one of those rare drummers - or at least rare for me - who can hold the stage with sensational solos.
A good friend who is also a drummer likes to joke that the definition of a jazz trio is "two musicians and a drummer". Harsh on himself but it’s not an instrument I naturally warm to, much as I understand its role.
I love this band and will see them again in tbe coming days and weeks. They were handing out CDs at the Balto - "just pay what you want" - and it's good listening for the car without quite capturing the dynamic power that typifies their gigs.
The clip I’ve chose (below) gets closer. HLR just seems to be one of those bands best encountered live.
I am not sure of all their names - though I already knew Georges, the keyboard player - but will slot them in when I can.
Do try to see them if you’re heading for these parts and manage to overcome the obstacles to smooth cross-Channel travel created by Brexit (but oafishly blamed on the French by the very people who proudly crushed our freedom of movement).
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