It has built up quite a reputation for becoming a staple of French cultural events. The 47th edition of Printemps de Bourges kicks off on April 18 with festivities that will span five days. While its success is characterized in part by its status as a talent scout, with a scouting system set up in the mid-1980s, here are five things to know about the event, which has marked the start of the festival season since years.
For five days, from Tuesday 18 to Saturday 22 April, Bourges will become the cultural capital of France with its famous music festival. On the program, 150 artists will perform in 33 shows. Among the headliners, we find in particular M, who opens, but also Lomepal, Juliette Armanet, Selah Sue, or even Bob Sinclar, Izïa, Lorenzo and Benjamin Biolay. Ticket prices vary between 8 and 44 euros. The concerts will take place in fifteen performance halls throughout the city, including Le W.
At the end of the 1970s, television and radio sets gave pride of place to musical stars of the moment such as Dalida, Michel Sardou, Claude François and even Mireille Mathieu. But leave aside a whole part of the French variety. It is in this idea that the Printemps de Bourges will be born, with its first edition from April 6 to 10, 1977, which aims to bring together “the other song”. Daniel Colling, Alain Meilland and Maurice Frot are its illustrious creators. The form of the festival was original for the time: in five days, around forty artists followed one another during multiple concerts at the Maison de la Culture. Charles Trénet was the headliner of this first edition.
In nearly half a century, the city of Bourges and its festival have seen many artists of international stature. Its historical followers remember several exceptional concerts and in particular in the 1980s with Johnny Hallyday and Eddy Mitchell in 1985, The Cure in 1987 or Johnny Clegg in 1988. Serge Gainsbourg, Charles Aznavour, U2 or even Murray Head also marked their mark the history of Printemps de Bourges.
Several political personalities, and not the least, went to the Printemps de Bourges and did not fail to leave some crisp anecdotes there. In 1982, for the sixth edition, the Minister of Culture Jack Lang will be the first to go there, inviting all of his successors in this ministry to do the same thereafter. In 1987, the President of the Republic, François Mitterrand, went there to see his daughter Mazarine, whose existence is still unknown to the French, who was then a festival goer. In 1995, a few months before the presidential election, the candidate Jacques Chirac went to the festival to perform a walkabout, but received a shower of apples from disgruntled spectators.
In an anecdote revealed by a former journalist from Berry Republican, we learn about the sulphurous temper of the American singer Nina Simone. During the 1989 edition, the artist asked for a limousine but, instead, the festival found him a Renault. Strongly unhappy, she gives her concert as if nothing had happened. But the next day, when the partners of Printemps offer her a gift box, she throws it on the ground, in rage. In 1992, at a press conference, Juliette Gréco and Joey Starr engage in a skirmish in front of journalists. While they do not know each other, the two artists cling on a background of humor. That same evening, on stage, Juliette Gréco felt unwell. She is hospitalized in Bourges and Joey Starr will hasten to visit her the next day.
