Eurockéennes

The Eurockéennes de Belfort is one of France's largest rock music festivals. The Eurockéennes, a play on words involving the words rock and européennes (Europeans), is a festival based in a nature reserve beside Lac de Malsaucy near Belfort. This most recent festival took place between 6 and 9 July 2017 with an attendance of 130,000 people.

Eurockéennes festival at the Malsaucy site

About[edit]

History[edit]

1989 marked the first time round for the festival, when it went under the name Le Ballon - Territoire de musiques, named after the nearby Ballon d'Alsace. The festival was organised to take place on the Ballon d'Alsace, but the peninsula on the Malsaucy lake was chosen in the end, because it was easier to link by car, bus and even train. It was the brainchild of the Conseil général of the Territoire de Belfort, who wanted to dynamise their département with a big cultural event for its youths.

In 1990 the festival was renamed les Eurockéennes de Belfort.

Attendance:

10,000 in 1989
70,000 in 1993
80,000 in 2002
95,000 in 2004
100,000 in 2006
100,000 in 2008
127,000 in 2013 (on 4 days)
102,000 in 2015

Les Eurockéennes takes place on the peninsula of Lake Malsaucy, 10 kilometres from Belfort. A number of different stages are present – la Grande Scène, le Chapiteau, la Loggia and la Plage. Most of the time there are simultaneous concerts on different stages; altogether in 2005 there were about 70.

A campsite, 3 km from the main site, is the free temporary home to 15000 festival-goers, with a free shuttle bus running between the campsite and the entrance to the main area.

Les tremplins[edit]

Tremplins (stepping stones) are organised to allow youth groups to get to know one another. These are organised in Alsace, Bourgogne, Franche-Comté (Doubs, Jura, Haute-Saône and Territoire de Belfort), Lorraine, Germany and Switzerland.

Billing[edit]

2012[edit]

2011[edit]

2010[edit]

2009[edit]

2008[edit]

2007[edit]

2006[edit]

2005[edit]

2004[edit]

2003[edit]

2002[edit]

2001[edit]

2000[edit]

1999[edit]

1998[edit]

1997[edit]

1996[edit]

Beck
David Bowie
Patti Smith
Foo Fighters ("We were opening up for David Bowie…" recalled Dave Grohl. "It didn't make any sense for me: a drummer pretending to be a singer; to stand in front of so many people and try to entertain them all. Like, I'm not Freddie Mercury. And then David Bowie goes out and lifts a fucking finger and people go fucking berserk. I didn't understand it at all."^[1]
Lou Reed
Nick Cave
Red Hot Chili Peppers
Sepultura
Skunk Anansie
Ash
The Bluetones
Dog Eat Dog
Frank Black
Fun Lovin' Criminals
Ministry
Miossec
NTM
Raggasonic
Silmarils
The Bates
Dominique A
Ginkgo
Loudblast
Red Cardell

1995[edit]

1994[edit]

1993[edit]

1992[edit]

1991[edit]

Vopli Vidopliassova's set was released on LP and CD a year later as Abo abo.

1990[edit]

Due to a storm, many performances had to be cut out, including Davy Spillane Band - Hubert-Félix Thiéfaine - Les Garçons Bouchers - P.V.O. - Stephan Eicher - Stéphane Riva).