Coachella: Yelle proves easy to translate
Kevin Bronson on
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Who: Yelle in the Gobi Tent
In 3 or Fewer Words: French kissed.
I’ll Remember This Until: The next time somebody coos at me en français. During some brief technical problems in Yelle’s set, the 28-year-old singer (born Julie Budet) asked the sweat-soaked crowd in the Gobi Tent whether they wanted a French lesson. Repeat after me, she implored: Bon soir. Je t’aime. Vous est bien? Test passed, and problems fixed, she moved on: “This is the same word in English and in French – do you want to dance?” And lithe and coquettish in her bright red pantsuit (though that’s not how she started), she launched into another attitude-spiked number from her new album “Safari Disco Club.” Yelle is very good turning naughty bits into danceable pop fodder, and for all the English-speaking fans knew she could have been saying “Get lost, you insufferable hipsters,” and they would have smiled, and danced some more.
What I’d Tell My Friend Who Was at the New Pornographers: Give my regards to Neko.
– K.B.
Photos by Scott Dudelson
[…] Julie Budet, aka Yelle, asked denizens of the Gobi Tent in her lilting French accent. They were. As she did in 2011, Yelle worked the crowd like a mime on a street corner, her slender body, wrapped in a […]