A bit premature: Paris’s current Irish-band-in-residence are victims of a graveyard timeslot.

Give rainy Irish "summer" festivals a miss and set off for a rock n'roll adventure in France this summer, with the first of our features on this season's music festivals in France. First up, Muse, Arcade Fire, LCD Soundsystem and many more huge names on the highly impressive bill of this south-west of France festival...

On the double: after playing to a difficult crowd there recently, the Choice Prize nominees made a more successful return to La Maroquinerie on 19 April. Watch them perform 'A Ghost In This House' live at this gig!

Great tunes, big name interviews, comedy French accent - 'Rapido' was essential TV for music fans in the late '80s and early '90s. Watch presenter Antoine de Caunes and My Bloody Valentine's Kevin Shields, both almost unintelligible but from opposite ends of the speedometer...

Chasing cars: take a test drive through beautiful old 1970's Paris at dawn, courtesy of the latest video from an Irish band you wouldn't normally associate with speed or glamour.

Train In Vain: the true story of how the hippest rock star of his day disappeared – and ran in the Paris marathon.

...because for many people this is the only French pop song they know - and it's actually really good! Listen (and watch the young Vanessa Paradis, more wholesome than you'll remember) for yourself.

A single Irish concert this weekend from one of France's many electro-pop duos. Check out the video for their cracking 2006 single 'Toop Toop'

You thought my punning title was excruciating and unconvincing? You should have been to The Shins concert in Paris last Sunday - the least seediest and most boring time a guy can have in Pigalle.

This Magic Stuff: Not even sound gremlins can spoil the dreamy new material from Ireland's indie pop queen.

Far from the Moulin Rouge and the Pigalle bars, La Flèche d'Or is the best place to see the young bands of Paris.

Tour de force: the Belfast lad with the great tunes and distinctive hair charms French viewers with one of his many wonderful songs.