Brittany spared! Incredibly, endangered French alternative music festival La Route du Rock shifts its ticket backlog and looks to have seen off its financial problems for the time being. A surge of interest in the Icelandic headliners is one of the factors. Live from La Route du Rock, watch Sigur Ros save the day.
La Route du Rock took place in Saint Malo on 14-16 August, as scheduled. And what do you know? The festival welcomed over 16,000 fans! Despite unseasonably cool weather, at least 5,000 fans came for each of the three nights.
The attendance was healthy enough to ensure the survival of the bi-annual trip to Brittany. “There will be winter and summer shows in 2009,” declared festival director François Floret, who only days before had been downbeat about the event's future.
Floret and his team will surely be toasting Sigur Ros (left, onstage at the festival). Promoting their much-fancied new album 'Med Sud I Eyrum Vid Spilum Endalaust', the Icelanders drew fans from across Europe.
“All their English shows are sold out,” festival-goer and Sigur Ros fan Andrew Dowset from Bristol explained to local newspaper Ouest France. “We looked for a date in Europe that wasn’t too far from where we live, and that’s how we found out about La Route du Rock.”
Cynical readers will probably wonder if the festival organisers were overplaying their poor-mouth act just to generate extra publicity. However, painting your festival as a dead man walking is hardly going to attract floating voters. That said, 6,000 extra punters don’t just walk up to a geographically-isolated festival at the last minute, as we’re lead to believe here.
Whatever the reasons, France’s much-loved indie festival seems set for a stable future. The sea air obviously works wonders.
From La Route du Rock 2008, here are festival saviours Sigur Ros with 'Hoppipolla':