Gojira

Gojira is now the biggest French death metal band of the decade, according to Metal Hammer. The band came to fame by playing at the world’s biggest festivals and climbing to the top of the charts. With two Grammy Award nominations (2017) and a series of successful albums and tours: Gojira has conquered the world!

Fortitude, their 7th album, is an outcry for the planet, with a green, activist message, and has received critical acclaim beyond the pages of the specialist press. One of the best albums of 2021 by a long way, according to Rolling Stone magazine, it went straight to number 2 of the French album charts. In the USA, it hit 12th on the Billboard Top 200: an exploit that not many French artists can say they’ve achieved!

This concert will be something of a coronation for Gojira!

Gojira (originally named Godzilla) was formed in a garage somewhere in Bayonne in 1996. The band started out with the Duplantier brothers, Joe and Mario, on guitar/vocals and drums, respectively, along with bassist Alex Cornillon and Christian Andreu. They produced a number of demos – Victim (1996), Possessed (1997), Saturate (1999) and Wisdom Comes (2000) – and began playing gigs at local festivals. In January 1998, Jean-Michel Labadie replaced Alex Cornillon on bass. In late 2014, the Duplantier brothers finished building their own studio in New York, moving to the city. The started work on a new album in 2015, only to be faced with the death of their mother. This tragic event was the inspiration for Magma, an album released in 2016. More rocky that those that came before, the album moved away from the traditional death metal sound, incorporating more accessible tracks with clear vocals that are more present than on earlier albums. Today, the band continues to rise, and they no doubt have some great surprises in store for what comes next!