Eva Blanche and the French Intruders Live in London

Eva Blanche and the French Intruders played their first London shows last month, and I was at two out of three of them.

It’s my habit to watch gigs in silence, but I broke my own rule two songs into seeing Eva Blanche and the French Intruders for the first time a couple of weeks ago.

“Amazing hair,” I hissed (because I have my own particular priorities) to the person who’d alerted me to this #BeMoreFrench opportunity. .

“What do you think of the music?” he whispered back.

“I am in my Yoko Ono zone,” I answered. “I have no idea what I think and feel but I’m riveted all the same.”

I can be quick to judge, given to lazy thinking, and I love a good cliché. And so, if I see a French singer who is visually interesting with the height and bone structure of a model, I anticipate that I might be about to be served something breathy, seductive, and pretty … something Bruni-esque, ouais?

Wistful and semi-acoustic is very much NOT what you get with Eva Blanche and the French Intruders.

I refuse to attempt music journalism, but I can assure you that this band is absolutely remarkable live. Their Saturday night show was a support slot, but their performance has such a grandeur to it that within the first two songs, the room is packed solid with people, all listening and watching intently.

I had the chance to chat with Eva after her set, and naturally, I couldn’t resist asking her about her hair. She was very gracious about that and we then went out to have a fag together. I have been outside venues smoking fags with quite a few musicians in my time, some of them quite renowned. But I have never witnessed so many people approaching an artist all star-struck and ‘that’s amazing’ and ‘when can I see you next?’ as I did with Eva, during the eight minutes or so that it takes to get all the way down an Embassy Superking.

When Eva offered me guest list for their headline show at Laylow in Golborne Road the following night, I accepted with alacrity.

Getting to see Eva Blanche and the French Intruders two nights running proved to be very interesting for me because:

a) different outfit, and

b) different instrumentation: a piano for Eva to play, not the keyboard she’d used the night before and

c) to my great surprise, I – with my cloth ears and inability to tell one instrument from another when it comes to brass and strings – recognised and remembered the songs from the shorter set that I’d heard the previous night. There are hooks and melodies in abundance in songs that my lazy mind had classified as ‘very interesting but probably quite beyond me to understand and appreciate fully, given my pop-sensibilities’.

Another big difference was the venue. Laylow is also a small room and a small stage, but it’s a private member’s club, so potentially a very different audience – not just people who’d actively sought out the gig but a captive audience in their home from home. W10 is the quartier in which I staked my claim to be considered la plus belle for more than a decade. It’s a wonderful neighbourhood, but it can also be scene-y and cliquey and very, very hard to impress.

Well guess what? Eva Blanche and the French Intruders impressed. And, just like the night before. there was a bit of a stampede to talk to Eva as she stood outside the venue after the show, people very keen (unusually keen for Grove, in my experience) to get details so they would get to see the band again. But with such a strong and distinctive live act, it’s really not surprising that so many people of differing demographics in different parts of this hard to impress town were so bowled over.

Eva’s vocals range over five octaves (I asked her, that’s how I know). It goes against nature to take your eyes off anyone who can sing like Eva can, and play the piano, all whilst wearing a navy blue skin-tight jumpsuit hemmed at the thigh, accessorised with beautifully shaped legs, and very, very high red shoes. And yet, you have to! 

The drummer and bassist create solid rhythms so groundy* and urgent they ignite that particular sense of excitement you get when the tarmac beneath your feet lets you know that a really good mobile sound system is heading your way at Carnival. And I had to stare very hard at the keyboard player to try (and fail) to figure out all the things that he gets up to in the creation of this incredibly immersive sound, that is very hard to describe, but easy to surrender oneself to.

*groundy [FRANGLAIS: a word coined by Catherine Ringer and printed in the lyrics to Bad Days on the inner sleeve of The No Comprendo album : ‘ the more heavy they are /the more groundy I feel’ ] EOTB contributer and my longtime partner-in-crime Pizzle and I discovered this word with delight in 1987 and we have used it ever since because it is the perfect linguistic fusion of grounded and grinding.