Fete de la Musique

Each year on the 21st of June, Paris (and now all of France and several other cities around the world) celebrate La Fete de la Musique. From the website, I did not get a good sense of the size of this celebration. Each "arrondisement" or neighborhood had about three-to four musical events listed. Including the suburbs, there must have been more than 120 musical performances. But, walking around the streets, it became clear that for every official performance, there were dozens of other "impromptu" performances.. Within a one block radius of the Pompidou Centre, there were at least seven bands, DJs, and other musical perfomances. Jazz, classical, African, middle-eastern, "pep-band?", classical, pop, dance and more could be heard throughout the city.

I met up with Ariel, Renaud and Joker. We ventured past city hall, Notre Dame, Isle de la Cite and the Marais.

Although we did not go to any of the large concerts, we did see small groups singing traditional French folk songs, young people playing drums, and a little band playing 80s retro as we walked along the Seine river.

Everyone in Paris - locals and tourists were out on the streets. I doubt anyone was at home on this hot summer evening. Although I took more photos of the spectators than of the performers, with all of the dancing in the streets, everyone was a performer to some degree.


As the sun set at about 10:00 pm, the lighting and clouds made for a "picture perfect" photo.

Passing by the Pompidou Center once again, as Ariel and Renaud headed home. I continued to wander around until about 12:30 AM when I was exhausted and decided to return home.
The first full day of summer started with a bang. I don't know what the temperature was during the day, but at about 9:30 pm I saw a thermometer-clock indicating that it was 29 degrees celcius, or about 84 degrees farenheit. I did not sleep well, even with a window open and the fan on, as my bedroom was about 80 degrees even at 1:30 in the morning. But, my apartment is very quiet and the silence was music to my ears.