Day 4, Friday July 21

Rocky, Grande Scène, 6:45pm-8pm

Electronic beats and a groovy sound are accompanied by the powerful black voice of the singer who shakes her long braids in the air. She is very sensual on stage, dancing and shaking her body around.

Singer Inès Kokou is half French and half from Togo on her dad’s side. Her dad is actually in the audience and she plays a song in which the refrain is in a dialect from Togo.

Rocky plays a beautiful cover of Joe Smooth’s “Promised Land” and entertain the audience.

Jalen N’Gonda, Club Tent, 8pm-9pm

Jalen N’Gonda is a soul artist from Maryland and based in Liverpool. He brings to Paléo his soulful voice and blues music with a touch of jazz and rock here and there. It’s a music that makes you travel with the mind back to the roots of American blues. An incredible talent!

Octave Noire, Le Détour, 9:15pm-10:15pm

A sombre timbre and an electro-pop sung mostly in French with a couple of songs in English. With Octave Noire we enter a world in which electronic sounds collide with the delicacy and melancholy of his voice.

Macklemore and Ryan Lewis, Grande Scène, 11:55pm-1:15am

Macklemore and Ryan Lewis hit the stage 10 minutes late in a star-like way, with them there are two other members, as well as a dancing crew which joins in in some of the songs. The audience is in awe when Ryan Lewis starts jamming on his drums and on his turntable and Macklemore starts rapping.

A huge screen in the back shows at times video footage of the concerts and other times pre-produced videos. From “Thrift Shop” to “Can’t Hold Us”, Macklemore and Ryan Lewis capture the audience in their world of political lyrics combined with hip-hop party music.

Macklemore is an incredible showman, constantly interacting with the audience, asking them to sing along, telling anecdotes and such. He shows off his rapping talent adopting a fast pace in the songs.

He dedicates the short song “Fuck Donald Trump” to the president of the US, the public sings along in the refrain. The song is accompanied by a video showing pictures of the president and Macklemore says he doesn’t like Donald Trump mainly because he tries to “divide people with hatred”.

Macklemore leaves the stage and a video introducing the tune “Dance”. He comes back on stage wearing a long-haired wig and starts singing out loud, inciting the audience to do the same and dance.

Towards the end of the show a waterfall of fire comes down from the top of the stage, leaving the audience in awe.

It’s a huge party, just like Macklemore predicted!

From soul to hip-hop a day 4 in the name of diversity!

Simona @TakeMe2aConcert