Live Review: Halflives, Lost Zone and FENCES \\\\ | Petit Bain, Paris | 23/04/25
Fun was the keyword that would describe the night we were about to live, mixed with rock'n roll and bright energy.
FENCES \\\\
The French quartet of FENCES \\\\, all dressed in white, stepped on stage to present their alternative rock and their driving riffs, led by dreamy vocals. The rawness of their sound defining the set, as heard on their tracks ‘The Great Listener’ or ‘A Breach To The Cosmos’ and on a new track, in ‘Any Last Word?’. The singing always on point, and the whole band contributing to the vocals as a unit. Maintaining the thrilled atmosphere of the crowd by making everyone clapping along the songs, FENCES \\\\ easily captivated the Parisian public. Rock’n roll is not dead, but they couldn’t say the same about Loïc’s drum snare, which ended up with a hole in it!
Lost Zone
The three-piece from Italy, Lost Zone, trod the stage to play a fresh post hardcore, starting with ‘Leftovers’. As seen through the crowd, people definitely enjoyed the band and seemed to already know them. The young line-up delivered some catchy tunes, depicting subjects related to mental health. ‘Fighting Demons’ is actually one of them, as mentioned by singer Florian Mahlknecht, where there are some battles to be fight through inner demons that could lead to suicide. The trio alternated pop sound and screams, reminding the likes of Our Last Night. They knew how to communicate with the fans, and it was easy to feel the excitement. Through ‘All Again’ (featuring Philip Wilhelm from Fall To Spring), they hyped the public when their bassist, Andre Plaickner, yelled during the rap part of the song ‘I f*cking nailed it!’ with a smile.
Settled on those good vibes, Lost Zone went even further with the Parisian crowd when they covered ‘Drown’ from Bring Me The Horizon, leading to a loud chanting Petit Bain. The Italians provided some lively music on high energy with very much potential on their following career.
HALFLIVES
Talking about energy, Halflives made an electric entrance, on one of their latest single, ‘No Way Out’ taken from their last EP How Much a Heart Can Take Before It Breaks. Needless to say that the band was not here to twiddle their thumbs but definitely to provide some rock’n roll and catchy tunes.
Linda Battilani (singer) had the mission to entertain the crowd and establish a connection with them, something she definitely did, and which was reinforced by her perfect French between songs. To even add more fun, Linda caught a stuffed snaked from the crowd to bring it on stage and played with it with bassist Marco Montipò on…’Snakes’, which switched the atmosphere to a more intimate vibe.
Let’s get back to the show. The singer shouted, ‘Paris, I think you like me because you think I’m crazy’ before playing ‘jealous.’. Halflives was out to create a performance, surrounded by golden leaves on the stage, a reminiscence of the new era, and the lights that went along with each era, they did not disappoint and gave life to the lyrics. Linda added that they released a new EP, because it was ‘never a phase’ and that she is still not an adult. ‘We still can make friends with the demons in our heads’, as in ‘perfectly broken’, a quick and heady song, sublimed by the drums of Gloria Simonini. As the rythm went more quiet, blue and red lights started to appear, which only meant something: ‘Oblivion’ was going to tear up some people. Lights out, piano in the background, everyone were singing like there were no yesterday, a moment suspended in time.
However, that was not the forever lasting ‘Vibe’ the band wanted. In a split of a second, Linda was in the crowd, singing along with everybody, hugging people and smiling. ‘Rockstar Everyday’ also followed that path. Back on stage, Paris played the game of speeding up the ‘Monday Tuesday Wednesday’ game, something that totally caught people’s smiles. One more song and it was the time for the vibrant ‘Eat Sleep Work Die!!! Repeat’ and the now iconic ‘Do you feel alive?’ got into people’s heads to easily finish the set…until Halflives came back on stage. Performing ‘Victim’ while playing again with the crowd, the band finally ended with the great ‘Immortals’. Hearing people shouting ‘We’re immortals’ was something memorable.
Halflives concert was definitely one for the books. Brilliant energy and chemistry, a solid scenography and interactions were the main acts of that night.
