- There was a moment at Weather festival when it became clear that the event's organisers had struck gold. It was about 8 PM on the Saturday evening and Robert Hood was playing live inside a large multi-purpose complex on the outskirts of Paris. The lights went down, and the Detroit veteran cut the kick drum from his mix, allowing the criss-crossing snares a chance to rattle out of the oversized speaker stacks. Then, a few seconds later, the booming kick returned, the lights came back on, and there it was: a sea of 7000 sweaty French kids pumping their fists to hard, dark, pummelling techno. Even Hood, who's seen it all in his time, looked impressed.
By the time he took to the stage, Marcel Dettmann and DJ Deep had already played. I missed Dettmann's set, but DJ Deep's session of slamming, Berghain-friendly material—a sound he's embraced in recent times—was lapped up by the crowd. As one of the festival's organizers said: "It feels like a little revolution." Looking around, it was hard to disagree. The average age was around 21 (though there was a fair smattering of older heads too) and the energy levels were high. It must have been at around 6 PM that I first noticed sweat dripping from the ceiling. The scene felt like a throwback to another era, a return of the mythologised Paris raves of the early '90s. Hood et al were playing midway through day two of the three-day event, at Palais Des Congrès Paris Est Montreuil, a huge, multi-story building in northeastern Paris. One level above the techno-focused room was a second, equally large space given over to housier fare, with D'Julz and Nina Kraviz sharing the bill during the day. There were apparently 12,000 across both rooms.
The previous night had seen the festival kick off at Machine de Moulin Rouge. Though the venue had the vague whiff of cheese you'd expect from a club in the middle of Paris's sleaziest tourist district, the lineup was a strong statement of Weather's intent. Kassem Mosse played an exquisite live show upstairs, before Tama Sumo and Ben UFO went back-to-back. The highlight though came in the cosy downstairs area, where D'Marc Cantu played a live show that ebbed and flowed from moody acid and star-gazing Detroit techno to raw, jacking house.
The crew behind Weather are best known for their Concrete afterhours parties—and the Sunday boat party at Port De La Rapée offered the perfect chance to kick on from Saturday's action. Ironically, given the festival's name, the day was blighted by heavy rain, but few seemed to care: when I arrived shortly after 8 AM the party was well under way, a mix of sweaty casualties from the previous night and a couple of fresh arrivals who had just woken up. People mingled and chatted upstairs as the atmosphere began to build down below on the main dance floor.
At times Weather felt like a weekend-long endurance test. Friday night eased into Saturday morning, Saturday night bled into Sunday, and come Sunday night there was still a pounding atmosphere as Kerri Chandler and then Theo Parrish took to the decks. There was a maverick feel to Weather that can most likely be put down to the organiser's lack of experience in putting on a major festival. The L.I.E.S. Sunday morning showcase I was planning to attend had to be shifted after the venue was shut down by police. The exit at Palais Des Congrès on Saturday was very difficult to find, and the sheer weight of numbers probably surpassed the wildest hopes of organisers. But it was hard not to admire how far Concrete has come since a breakthrough party two years ago, when it was still known as Twsted.
When I returned to the boat Sunday evening after a break, the vibe was joyous. Parrish was playing when I left for a final time. Those remaining were getting their third (or fourth?) wind, and some were summoning the energy to visit the closing party with Zip. It was 24 hours since Hood's set at Palais Des Congrès, and it's a mental image that stuck with me all weekend. But it was by no means the moment of the festival, simply one of many. The whole weekend had a palpable air of excitement. It was the culmination of a movement that's been brewing in Paris since that first Concrete party in 2011, one that's been waiting for the opportunity to manifest itself on a large scale. A revolution, indeed.