I almost surrendered, then making it clear that I was going to have to finish my vacation by undergoing the historic heat wave that burned Paris and its suburbs to nearly 43°C. A worked Monday afternoon, and hop, the timing was broken ... But actually there was a solution somewhat risky but playable: a plane early EEEARLY Monday morning in Prague (7 a.m...), for a landing in Paris at 9am, which allowed me a lot of time to leave all my stuff at home, to take a shower and go to work and being fucking TIRED and sad. An option that I chose without really hesitating. Even when you take a vacation from your work, he always strikes back to remind you how much he have control over your life and on these moments of escape.
This is the 3rd time I went to Fluff Fest. This time I was leaving from Strasbourg, with a friend I hadn't seen for too long, I missed them, we spent the night before we left watching
Queer Eye while eating a mega-dose of pasta with lots of vegan treats in it; and drinking a sweet infusion, until like 2 or 3 a.m? And then I was going to discover during our long journey and at our camp some other adorable people who were going to animate our evenings with incredible anecdotes and globally bad (but not cringey) jokes but which make us laugh every time. The Strasbourg - Rokycany route was mainly based on hits of French popular music, remixes by DJ Chelou and Khaled Freak, as well as with the first album of
BELGRADO (one of the best post-punk bands in the world, whether you want it or not). It has become my July ritual, these holidays away from this oppressive routine in this Czech province, which plunges me into what I love musically and humanly. Seeing lots of bands that I love, discovering others bands just as cool, gorge on these incredible seitan gyros, which are sometimes becoming tacos after a certain late hour, spending hours cruising and hanging out with lots of familiar people and friends, sharing moments of rare conviviality, in this aerodrome one hour away from Prague.
The Fluff Fest celebrated its 20th anniversary, and promised for the occasion to be bigger than ever: 5 days of concerts, a much larger place given to politics... We could therefore expect the ultimate Fluff! Well, in the end, not that much: There was the usual Friday, Saturday and Sunday in Rokycany, but the other two days were a pre and post-Fluff ... Probably imagined as being on the road back for the majority of festival-goers? Not a bad idea, but that post-Fluff was announced with
BIRDS IN ROW on the line-up, in a room with a capacity obviously MUCH smaller than that of the aerodrome (but not super tiny), in an abandoned building in Prague. The disappointment was great and understandable: I think everyone expected to close the festival with them, or to burn in the sun screaming in front of them. I remember their show at the Fluff 2017 in mainstage, it was sooo great. Everyone was transported by their music that makes the effect of an explosion, sudden sing-alongs instantly came out of everyone's deepest parts of their heart, and everyone were stage-diving on repeat (thanks again for the s/o with "A Kid Called Dreamer" by the way ♡). There's not a single video from this set apart from Instragram recordings! So, quite logically, we could expect to live this again to celebrate as it should be the 20 years of a fest which, for the occasion, offered an already stunning: line-up the penultimate date of
SPORT, the penultimate European gig of
GRAF ORLOCK, an exclusive european
CEREMONY set, the
STATE FAULTS /
SHIROKUMA tour, the
CHAVIRE /
HEAVY HEART crew , the beautiful Italian screamo of
ØJNE, the straight-edge attacks of
TØRSÖ,
WAKE OF HUMANITY and
xBYSTANDERx... And jspeaking of SxE, there wasn't that much on the bill this year. Yet there were a lot of X-watches and t-shirts with SxE symbols/bands among festival-goers. Fortunately, say the purists of the fest and SxE Fluffers ;)
In addition to that, it was expected that a big place would be given to politics this year? Conferences on a bigger stage? Collectives who would speak, organize stuff, speeches by people affected by systemic oppressions?? Well nope, we were always on the same format, the Infotent, without anyone being really informed of what was going on otherwise than with a paper at the entrance of the tent. In the end, the only visible difference in terms of politics in the walls of the fest this year was the big LGBTQIA+ flags hoisted at the reception and on the mainstage... A posture certainly pleasant, and anyway obvious to see there, but in this case, why didn't then give more visibility to the conferences given to the infotent about LGBTQIA+ struggles, for example? It's a shame, it would have been consistent with the supposed approach of the fest, his birthday, and with the current atmosphere of our soceties...
So here we are, with a Fluff not so "deluxe" for his 20 years, the only thing that really changed in the end being the layout of the scenes. Yep, Fluff team allowed themselves a small fantasy rather curious at first glance: the tentstage has grown, the mainstage has thinned, so that the two scenes have become almost equivalent, the mainstage is in the other direction that usually and the new tentstage takes the place of the merch stand, which now separates the two scenes. With the All Go No Slow stage (which will also acted as the third scene on Sunday) located behind the two scenes. A configuration that could possibly lead to fear a somewhat chaotic sound, if sets of each scene overlapped, but in the end the genies of the Fluff sound did the job, and no concert seemed to encroach on the other, at least from what I heard... except those of the infotent. No change on the other hand for the Psych Tent, true to his position and his area! And personally, I liked the fact that the 2 main scenes are similar, and that we've got really more space around the tentstage.
No changes as well for the camping and parking: always too few showers (4 cabins for EVERYONE!), With two plugs and heating (when it works...) but THAT'S still a great point, too often the hot water was out of service, and then yeah; we know well these famous "Toi-Toi", these dry toilets that require courage to be used during the afternoon or evening... It may be a little capricious, even if I am convinced that no, but when we offer these basic services, it's a-priori not to make illusion... Always this maintenance effort to make! That said, the showers were warm (or at least a bit lukewarm) the whole day after the huge storm that swamped the party, and that's cool. I will come back to it later.
After the grumpy time (which will also come back later), we'll talk about the cool stuff, which mainly consist of food and line-up haha! Although, it's subjective. But it seems to me that we are finally going to Fluff for several common reasons: spend a few days away from everything, in a festive setting, a celebration of our scenes, our fights (in theory), with 100% vegan (great) food, without any complex, without any fear of being ourselves. We still go there because we know we're going to laugh, take musical slaps, to lay in the pool for an entire morning on our finest buoy or just make his best dives, to have a hard time setting our tents or to find clean toilets but doing it anyway... Have a good time out of our social, professional and digital jails (although the screens are always present at Fluff, and I am far from being an exception). This year, the line-up was still pretty varied. Not much crust, a little of straight-edge hardcore, but a good panel of what's going on in post-punk, sludge, emo, screamo, post-metal, or other usual weird stuff you always find at Psych tent. For me, It was a year rich in discoveries, and rich in sing-along. The festival assured himself to be super crowded just with the presence of
CEREMONY and
SPORT, who each delivered a nice gig, the Lyon guys with a constant smile and strong emotions visible on their faces, and the Americans determined to drown everyone in the mud beaten by the moshers and other stage-divers during
TØRSÖ gig.
It's always quite complicated to hop from one concert to another, especially when you want to see most of them and that it's spread over an entire afternoon and during a very hot day like this Friday. It was during the peak of an historic heatwave that hitted whole Europe... The Fluff Fest happens mostly outdoors, so when the sun is fully shining, it's ruthless. During the
GRAF ORLOCK set, I felt myself almost fainting, and I didn't fully enjoy it... And that's a bummer, because it was so cool. I had a lot of rediscoveries and surprises this year, as with this duo who played something between scottish-style emo / post-hardcore à-la
CARSON WELLS, or similar to
SELF DEFENSE FAMILY, and maybe a bit of
SONIC YOUTH. It was called
BUMBRLE, they played at 1a.m on Sunday at Psych Tent, the singer / guitarist plays in many other bands including a screamo one called
LA PROSPERITE, and it was great. It was really reminiscent of blues, with a huge reverb on it, they were heard until our camp which brought together a Strasbourg / Tours / Chaville axis, and little by little, their music aroused my curiosity, then I had a crush (who can be heard
here) ... Well, at this year's Psych Tent, I would have also discovered
EDUCATION, a raw, psychedelic and aggressive Italian post-punk / hardcore, who reminded me of
IMPULSO whom I saw at the end of last year's Fluff and blew me away, and
LAVRA, a curious and intriguing Czech duobetween electropop, noise and indus ... I think I'm a little bad to describe their music properly, there was even a bit of destructured trap I think, but I liked how their music was decomposing and sinking sometimes in noise and shoegaze, hypnotizing us, taking on chaotic airs, when by far you could hear catchy and almost cheesy verses, like
BANKS you know. But yeah, nice discovery, it took me out of my comfort zone, I wanted it this year. A little before the set of
LAVRA I also discovered
URN, a solo project mixing drone, jazz, ambient, electro and post-rock. Surprisingly captivating, sometimes a little too messy for me, but a nice discovery in the end... Perfectly the kind of stuff that the asso "En Veux-Tu En V'là" could book in Paris, if it hasn't already been done :D !
As I expected, I was able to attend wonderful gigs, which illustrated my main motivations to go to the Fluff, I'm thinking about the
ØJNE gig for example, which ended in jubilation, explosion of joy and various emotions, a rare moment of sharing and life. Really, it wasn't just a cool gig of a cool band, it was a huge cathartic moment, where the
ØJNE people barely realized what was happening in front of their shining eyes: a crowd literally abandoned to their music, who came from the four corners of Europe, singing words from a language that they don't know at all for some of them, according to the band... It was really beautiful. There had been the same emulation for the
SPORT concert, it was 2 times more intense than during their set in Paris that had already shooked me. But that was predictable, that penultimate one was eagerly awaited since the announcement of the Fluff 2019 line-up, and everyone had time to get ready... Well as parisian people for the Paris date too! But, inevitably, there were way more people, so more party! There was also this incredible
ASTRID LINDGREN set, this Polish band which is somewhere between melodic hardcore and emo,
LIFETIME meets
DEATH IS NOT GLAMOROUS, that I really didn't wanted to miss, which was held under an impressive deluge, which did not stop irreducible Fluffers, fans of the ban, and myself to see their set rich in sing-along and in falls in the freshly flooded mud... You have to know that we had that day one of the strongest storms that happened that day in Czech Republic and that it lasted an hour! Which made the
TØRSÖ and
CEREMONY sets very risky to follow for the public, as the ground was muddy and turned and so it would necessarily be a complete mess... For
TØRSÖ, I wanted to see them again and to forget their Parisian chaotic show because of those few macho guys who ruined the atmosphere, and to actually enjoy seeing them. Well, it was even more chaotic hahaha! But for more climatic reasons than anything else, so it was OK. But it wouldn't be cool to prevent people from doing stage-dives: a windbreaker over your clothes, a cap and here we go, you were protected you and your favorite clothes against the mud attack! Personally I found it funny, it was a bit boring to get dirty, but with that windbreaker on me, and that spot I found on a step on the left side of the scene, I actually had almost zero mud on me!
I came back from the Fluff after the set of
THE BODY, Sunday night, too brutally. I didn't say "goodbye" to many people, I couldn't have time: local friends who offered to bring me back to Prague airport in order to not to miss my plane the next morning, had to began work sooner than me. Even sooner than the takeoff of my plane: 7 a.m... So I couldn't make them take the road at midnight and stole them some sleep, we left at 11 p.m, we went to the airport... The next day at 9am, I was already in the "RER" (the name of the french train lines of parisian suburbs). A way too sudden change of atmosphere. It took a lot of time to think that yeah, it was over, that usual life was back...
During the Fluff, a mysterious Instagram account appeared, claiming that a secret concert of
HAVE HEART was planned, raising completely stupid clues, like a branch of a tree or a random cops helicopter supposed to assure them a spectacular arrival. The gag was more or less based on the presence of
HEAVY HEART on the line-up (the similarity between the 2 names, you know), and while the reunion of the iconic straight-edge melodic hardcore and his concert given in front of literally 10,000 people in Worcester, Massachusetts, gave goosebumps to every european hardcore kid. Even today, people are looking for who is behind this account ... I announce you that during the huge downpour, and after our conversation has strategically drifted towards football to direct my research after a first clue appeared on the account story, I quickly found out who it was, and I inform you that this fool is in the east of France and has already played the Fluff ;)
This was my 3rd Fluff, which was for me rich in various encounters and reunions, which still serves as a powerful annual catharsis for several hundred people from various counter-currents of punk and hardcore throughout Europe or even other continents, but which has opened my eyes a little more to the bad points of the fest:
● A lack of vigilance outside the entrance / ticketing: basically, anyone can enter the campsite and do whatever they want, starting with stealing stuff, a fact that happened every year to my knowledge since the first time I went there, in 2017. It would also prevent dangerous people from infiltrating the fest with false weapons or not: this year, a person with a fake gun but a real knife was spotted, then apprehended two hours after his arrival on the area... By the police. The Fluff staff has been forced to knowingly go against its political motivations and to bring the cops into a place where there's no way to welcome them in normal times (we already know how they love to patrol around the fest and spy on what's happening there). If the organization was more consistent with its own policy and had in mind that among the anti-fascist activists, there's people trained in various techniques of defense and counter-attack, people who are part of various collectives, they would already suggested to some of these people, often present at the fest, or to a local or European anti-fascist collective, to hold a guard during the fest, there would surely be much less problems of the kind. Maybe also less problems of machism, sexism...
● Because yes, as in ANY festival, concert, gathering related to punk music in our current time, no matter its political scope (well, in a lesser scale when it's clearly on the left side of politics, but still) there's at Fluff what we can found every time around us : sexism and toxic virility, which has been confirmed again this year. I saw during the
NIBOOWIN gig a woman to be violently insulted and jostled by two really rude guys. There are too many guys, on stage as in the showers who still impose their body as if they were at home for no reason? There is still a real problem at this level, but that doesn't depend on the organization in itself, but on a whole system.. It's important to remember that Fluff Fest is not a safeness Eldorado but it's not worth a boycott at all, because hey, let(s be realistic: you still feel much MUCH better than on your daily life, your job, or even than home according to your life situation, when you're someone else than a cis-person, and a priori when you're a woman (I am based on the experience of some friends). It's just that we must not delude ourselves: the perfect society still doesn't exist, even less in our spheres of comfort ...
● Hygiene is a "festival hygiene" one, let's be clear, we can clearly not ask it to be "5 stars", but it seems to me that we can ask some reasonable logistical efforts: there's REALLY not enough showers: 4 cabins for the whole fest?? OK, it's true that there's the pool 5 / 10mn away by walk that offers showers... But not everyone want to / can buy a week-end pass to go to the pool just to have a shower, it would be nice to think about it. And inevitably, there is a lot of wait, sometimes up to 15 minutes for our turn, and the hot water is quickly gone. On the other hand, it's to be welcomed that there's 220V plugs are always available and functional, I was able to use my hair dryer and my hair straightener this year again! The day after the HUGE thunderstorm that literally drowned the Fluff area, there was hot water all day, and that was super recomforting... It should be also noted that this festival is overall clean, that abandoned waste is much less present than the majority of music fests, that the majorty of Fluffers are setting garbage cans, do sorting, sometimes even take waste with them on their way back home... We are pretty OK with the ecological issues. Correct me if I'm wrong, because I have never seen this airport after the departure of all festival-goers ...
●
Ah, these famous Toi-Toi! These dry toilets usable in a relatively pleasant way only early in the morning, otherwise it's quickly smelly and dirty... The heat doesn't help, by the way. Here's a little tip to save your intestinal transit during the fest: go to the WCs when you wake up, the sun automatically waking us around 8 or 9am, except if you get mad drunk the night before, The toilets are changed or cleaned at this time, with new paper rolls. I handled my "WC moments" better this year with this trick lol! To be honest, I think that the Fluff staff and the people who work to bring and maintain these toilets do their best, and that the problem mainly comes from certain festival-goers who don't give a fuck about the others and are leaving toilets in various scales of mess and dirtiness, while being drunk or something.
● IMPORTANT: it's always painful or impossible to go to the toilets and especially to the showers if you are a disabled person (it's not my case, but I know how complicated it is for them). How a wheelchair user can access the showers via this unstable stair? How can they have room to wash in these very small showers? It's really not fair and it really has to be corrected in the future: maybe by providing a specific room for these people?
It was my 2 cents on a festival that I still like a lot, and where I will come back for sure next year... Hoping that these few concerns that I developed above will be studied and corrected. But in 2020 I absolutely want to go (for the first time in my life!) to "Cry Me A River Fest", and do not miss the "Miss The Stars Fest"... But in truth, CMAR is pretty cheap to do, if you go there with friends, a vehicle and some camping gear. So in 2020, it looks like I will go to these 3 fests! This year will be well placed under the skramz life sign for me, and it seems that I will still have to ignore many hours of sleep :D ...
Oh yes, and the image above this english translation is from a challenger of Fluff Fest, the Brutal Assault, during the
GUTALAX set this year. Certainly a challenge to the Fluff audience for the 2020 edition, to protect the clean toilets all day long and to celebrate them at their true value. All hail Toi-Toi.
