It’s one of those evenings where you feel that everything is still possible. One of those evenings where it feels good to believe. They have no age, no color. They have come with their children, and with their parents. Those who live here, and those who have traveled from other neighborhoods. Those who have rhythm in their blood, because it’s the rhythm they grew up with, and those who rediscover the rhythm somewhere deep inside, because they have learned to love it. Everyone, standing side by side, because the celebration is universal.
The first act, and the theater is already packed. On stage tonight, the kid is a young North African. A kid carried away and supported by the crowd, who puts Arabic words to accordion notes. A kid whose smile widens when the audience gets up to dance with him. He has a big, warm, and deep voice, which you could imagine undulating Andalusian dancers. It’s Tarik, who tonight plays piano standing up, and supports the opening part of the Orchestre National de Barbès. Tarik, who came with Guillaume his drummer with a rocker look, Abdel and his percussion, Michel for the electric guitar, and Fayçal on the djembe. Tarik and his Latino Raï. The audience is won over, and when the young artist leaves the stage, the impatience is palpable.
Fortunately, the Orchestre National de Barbès doesn’t keep us waiting. Eleven musicians take the stage in the dark, and then a strange chant rises as a prelude to the concert. In this voice, there is something that one also feels in Corsican polyphony or in the ancestral chants of Native Americans. This strong and soothing lament that speaks to us of the land. In a solo of trembling flute, a powerful voice awakens the little piece of desert that sleeps in us. And then everything accelerates. The rhythm of the streets takes over. Faster, more colorful. Three guitars, two synthesizers, one drum kit, djembes, a saxophone, a tambourine… The Orchestre National de Barbès performs, relying on the choir of the hall that it gets singing in rhythm. A feat, which does not detract from the musical quality. They juggle with rhythms and worlds, carnival-like, oriental, with rock and jazz accents. But always popular, always festive. They play among the public, dance with it, sing with the choirs and bodies. They have come, like their audience, to party, in the same spirit, with the same enthusiasm, as friends.
They say they are eleven of the best musicians in Paris. Do you know Barbès? A long boulevard that slopes down towards the stage docks. Under the trees, along old typical Parisian buildings, under the gray capital sky, women wear brightly colored boubous, and goods are spread out on ground cloths. Suddenly, around you, all languages are spoken. Paris is exotic, Barbès even more so. “Being from Barbès means being French, and then Algerian, Congolese, Vietnamese. But above all, it means being universal!” says a musician from the ONB.
