RIVAL SONS LIVE AT THE OLYMPIA, PARIS
The phrase “religious experience” tends to get thrown around a lot when everyone is staggering out of a packed venue after witnessing an amazing band who seemed to have held an almost equally amazing audience in their hand for the duration of the show, and it would be a shame to kick things off here with such a dull expression, but goddammit, the Rival Sons experience at the Olympia in Paris last night was exactly that – as full-on a religious experience as you’re probably going to get this side of 2024.
Rival Sons are out on the road in support of their two latest albums; Darkfighter, released back in June, and the second part of this almost-but-not-really double-album, Lightbringer, which hit the shelves one week ago. Kicking off in May, the North American leg of the tour saw the band play in over thirty cities before they crossed the
Atlantic for the European leg of this “Darkfighter Tour”, arriving in France this week with dates in Nantes and Lyon before finally reaching Paris for a sold out show at L’Olympia.
Openers L.A. Edwards did enough to warm the crowd up with their chilled, West-Coast sound, which was at times reminiscent of perhaps Neil Young or Tom Petty. While they were enjoyable enough, you could sense that the audience were getting impatient for the kind of energetic, electric performance that we knew the main act were going to deliver. The Parisian crowd gave them an enthusiastic enough send off however, and from then it was just a short wait until Rival Sons were due to hit the stage.
With singer Jay Buchanan hampered by a throat which “feels like I’ve swallowed some glass”, Rival Sons could have been forgiven for shortening the set a little,
but instead we received a full, seventeen song, two hour show filled with nothing but highlights. And when a band can fill the stage for two hours with not one dull moment and not play a song like Nobody Wants To Die then you know you’re watching a group who have a lot of credit in the bank when it comes to the quality of both their back catalogue and their new material.
Which brings us a little prematurely to the stats : Seven songs of the seventeen played tonight came from the latest releases: opener Mirrors, Bird In The Hand, Darkside and of course Rapture from DARKFIGHTER, Sweet Life and Mosaic from LIGHTBRINGER. Like any new material you could see from a quick look around the crowd who has listened to the new material and who has not, but the reception is no less enthusiastic than that given to the better known songs.
Buchanan’s barefooted-preacher/frontman style is already known to everyone in the room, but still, his presence is never less than impressive. During third song of the night, I’m Electric he could barely keep still for a second. So moved by the experience of playing the Olympia, Jay at one point during the set told the audience that he felt like he was having an out of body experience (so perhaps we weren’t overly incorrect with our own proclamations when we hit the streets later) so moved was he by the experience of playing in such a venue. It was a feeling that seemed to be shared by the crowd.
Guitarist Scott Holiday’s stage presence is also something to behold – behind those glasses, and below that hat, there is an expression of calm satisfaction from the first moment they hit the stage, even during the most intense moments of the set. It’s an expression that says “I’m cool as fuck, the rest of the band are awesome and you all know it,” but without even the tiniest hint of arrogance. Still, it’s sometimes easy to forget that Rival Sons have over a decade and half of history, including eight albums worth of music, behind them, and so they have every right to sit comfortably, watching the success snowball. Sit comfortably while working their asses off, that is …
Holiday and Buchanan may, inadvertently, be the faces of the band, but that should take nothing away from the presence and playing of Dave Beste on bass or from the absolutely immense Mike Miley on drums. Drum solos were traditionally the “right then, where’s the bar/toilet?” moment of any gig, but nowadays thankfully they seem to be reserved for drummers who definitely deserve their moment under the lights, and at the end of Open My Eyes we were treated to a taste of exactly what Miley can do, a demonstration of what the energy in their music is founded upon.
There were no encores, just a solid two hour set, and that’s pretty much how we like it (we’ve noticed this becoming more of a “thing” recently, and while it’s perhaps becoming a bit of a trend we have to say that it sits well with us. It probably means we get at least one more song crammed in rather than having four minutes of the crowd stomping their feet for more). Ending the set with Keep On Swinging ensured the band went out on a high. The following cheers and applause from the Olympia audience kept the band onstage for a full ten minutes, but no one was complaining, obviously. Everyone in the room, band and spectators, deserved those last moments.
SETLIST : Mirrors :: Do Your Worst :: Electric Man :: Rapture :: Darkfighter :: Open My Eyes :: Sweet Life :: Pressure and Time :: Jordan :: Bird in the Hand :: Feral Roots :: Darkside :: Face of Light :: Shooting Stars :: Too Bad :: Mosaic :: Keep On Swinging
FULL PHOTO GALLERY AVAILABLE HERE
WORDS AND PHOTOS BY BRIAN DOWNIE
