GIG: NOUVELLE VAGUE
BY SOPHIE TARR
When I speak to singer Melanie Pain, of French outfit Nouvelle Vague, she’s losing her voice. She’s still recovering from the night before, she says, having just played a sold-out gig to a London crowd of 2,500. Not bad for a cover band.
But if ‘cover band’ makes you think of 50-year-old men dressed as school-boys, belting out Highway to Hell at your local, think again. Nouvelle Vague are coquettish, subtle, and dripping with Gallic cool. It’s enough to fool some audiences into thinking they’re performing original material.
‘I think for us it’s very important that people understand that we’re covering songs,’ Pain says. ‘Enfin, it was conceived as an homage of punk and the new wave period. It’s always strange for us when people don’t know that it’s covers, and say ‘Ahh, this I Just Can’t Get Enough, it’s a great song,’ ‘ it’s Depeche Mode!’
Perhaps it’s because Nouvelle Vague has been so meticulously planned, from its ethos right down to its name. ‘Nouvelle vague’ translates to ‘new wave’ in English, and ‘bossa nova’ in Portuguese. So, of course, the band takes new wave, post-punk hits and interprets them in a bossa nova, late sixties style.
It’s an approach that’s won Australian audiences over: this summer will see Nouvelle Vague tour here for a fourth time. The plan is to introduce tracks from the band’s work-in-progress album, including their charming re-work of the Sex Pistols’ God Save the Queen and the Violent Femmes’ Blister in the Sun. When asked what we can expect from the band’s live shows, Pain is precise: ‘I think the show will be … very intimate, very sexy, and stylish.’ Very French, quoi.
19 December. The Factory Theatre, 105 Victoria Rd, Enmore. Tickets: $49.50. 9550 3666, www.factorytheatre.com.au
