Fête de la Musique Rock Stage, Yerevan, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimedia 2007

I’ll be totally honest and admit that I had no idea what the Fête de la Musique was and certainly didn’t realize that it would be held in Yerevan as well as 400 other cities and towns worldwide. In fact, I had just been told that there would be a free rock concert outside of the Moscow Cinema on Thursday and I should probably go down and take a few photos. As it was, there were other different types of music being played elsewhere in central Yerevan, as detailed by Anoush Armenia.

In Yerevan, the philharmonic orchestra played a free concert, children’s singing groups performed by Komitas’ statue, but later in the evening it was lovely Abovian street whose scene was not to be missed. Reggae-band Reincarnation brought smiles to everyone crowded around Square One, The Beautified Project and of course Bambir brought their unstopable energy out to Charles Aznavour square…and the Fête ended with a finale of a remarkable new jazz band The Zoo playing at the French Terrace (how apropos), under cafe umbrellas while the warm summer rain started to drizzle in, with the smell of wine and strawberry hookah floating in the air…

Anyway, I pretty much hung around the rock stage waiting for Bambir to perform, but although there’s not much information and photos on Thursday’s events online, there is at least some. TOL’s The Armenian Patchwork has some photos of the day although again largely centered around Moscow Cinema.

Things went on in the centre, almost all of the concerts were on Abovyan street. Any musicians were invited to play, professional or amateur, but the way I saw it, the amateurs decided not to test their luck. Who knows, maybe later, after all this was the first event of this kind.

[…]

In front of the cinema the audience was the biggest. The French Embassy, which organized the fest, asked some people to organize in their turn a rock concert here, and although in a short period of time, it turned out well.

Another blogger, Tirami Su, was also there, but views the event with some cynicism, especially as the Sksela youth movement had been turned down by the city municipality when it tried to recently stage an open air rock concert.

Yerevan Municipality came up with a new excuse for denying Sksela a right to conduct a rock-concert outdoors. Apparently, there are many tourists in the city and since it is vacation time a rock-concert in the center of Yerevan will disturb resting Armenians and foreigners.

[…]

Launched in 1982 by the French Ministry for culture Fête de la Musique is held on June 21 in more than hundred countries in Europe, and since we are playing this “we-are-all-for-democracy-European values-EU” game this year Armenia joined in.

[…]

Abovyan street alone held flamenco, rock, raggy, folk and even more rock music concerts. It was quite nice actually, Yerevan for once looked as if it appreciates diversity. Too bad Armenians and tourists must have had a hell of a day. What was our municipality thinking, god!?

I think she has a point. One rule for some, another for others it would appear. Anyway, there’s really not much else in the blogosphere on the Fête de la Musique although Raffi at Life in Armenia has posted one photo. In the traditional online media, Armenia Now has a photo story on the day.

Fête de la Musique Rock Stage, Yerevan, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimedia 2007