We all yell for Yelle!

Yelle Ninkasi Salle du Kao, Lyon October 22, 2011

For those of you who don’t know who Yelle is, I am not going to bother explaining; maybe because I don’t know who she is either, or maybe because if you like the sound of what she does from reading this review you are perfectly capable of finding it out for yourself.

After vaguely remembering some kind of remix of her song ‘A cause des garcons’ on an early Kitsune compilation, I thought it would be worth checking her out. I’m glad I did. Ouais, she is just another electro-pop act that we all are capable of living without, but if you actually are incapable of living without French, female electro-pop then you’re probably dead right now if you have not heard of Yelle.

Opening her set with two identically dressed male drummers complete with green sports visors, the flamboyant Frenchie ran on stage engulfed from head to foot in a coat which seemed to be made of shredded newspaper. Well, kudos to her for the recycling ethic and the ability to sing (very well, in fact) under that thing.

Despite an absence of live instruments except for the drums and her voice, the use of just a backing track was not at all detrimental to the performance. The beats were heavy enough to keep everyone dancing and Yelle was boisterous enough to keep everyone’s eyes glued on her. Plus, she was pumpin’ those moves to no end, you couldn’t not join in.

With two costume changes; first into a tiny leopard print dress and then into a skin-tight, full-bodied red playsuit; her set was gimmicky enough to fit in with the air of Perry-Gaga-Rihanna-esque plastic whilst maintaining a sharp edge of Major Lazer cool.

It is a shame that all of the songs were in French (or that the English culture includes a complacency of being ignorant of foreign languages) otherwise she’d surely take the English charts by storm. However if Yelle’s style sounds like your kind of thing, don’t let it put you off having a listen as the music is definitely strong enough to hold itself up.