Old Yelle

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by Sandy Carson

She’s no dog. Don’t put her down.

For at least one curious Francophile mid-throng last night at Mohawk, a venue stuffed with young hands in the air, Yelle whiffed a faint hint of early, “Burnin’ Up” Madonna, looking totally French actress, however – Vanessa “Mrs. Johnny Depp” Paradis crossed with now Parisian Leslie Feist. One audience member mouthing the singer’s native tongue pegged la chanteuse from the Bretagne region of France as resembling Sophie Marceau. Her electro-pop, for better or worse, banged all of the above.

For an hour, mademoiselle Julie Budet and her two sidemen in “Dance or Die” black tees, entreated “Aouse-teen” back across the decades, throngs invited onstage mobbing pure Soul Train from a New Wave age celebrated with fat, 1990s abandon. No subtitles on Yelle’s 2007 debut Pop-Up meant none live either, so the masses danced and did the pogo like they just didn’t care. DJ GrandMarnier and a live drummer beat home the main set with “A Cause Des Garçons,” two tunes for the encore including French hit “Je Veux Te Voir,” a rude sexual putdown put across same as the rest of the evening: ecstatic.

As the venue emptied just past 11pm, M.I.A. pumped through Mohawk’s P.A., substance to Yelle’s style. See image gallery.