Respire show @ Le Supersonic 06.05.2025

These past few months have been dry and concert free (but not necessarily show free? I went to see Mamma Mia live and that was loads of fun I guess???) so I'm posting this one to compensate.

I follow a few venues in Paris just to see what they might be hosting in case anything cool happens. The Supersonic is REALLY famous, but not really my scene, I've been there a couple of times, but they mostly host 'indie' and shoegaze-y bands, which I don't always like. It was a tuesday afternon and I was studying for my finals when I saw that the Supersonic were hosting a post-hardcore and screamo night apparently???? This piqued my interest cuz that NEVER happens, so i dragged my ass down to the supersonic to check it out.

I arrived late so the second band was halfway through their set (I didn't catch their name but they were fine, more pop-punk-y than post hardcore if I remember correctly though). Then Respire came on, they're this canadian... screamo???? band???? Screamo sounds like it fits but also not fully cuz honestly their style was so unique??? I was blown awat. They had a violin player and.. some horn instrument (I don't know which sorry) and it was SO COOL. They were really really good!!! Definitely check them out. Seriously. Do yourself a favor. Do it for me. 

After the show I went to the merch table to talk to the band guys and get a CD, and they were soooo sweet!! We talked a little bit but I didn't stay too long because there were people behind me. The highlight was one of the guitarists asking me if I'm canadian because my accent in english "doesn't sound french"... I don't have a french accent, I sound vaguely american so I'm used to people assuming I am, but I'd never gotten canadian before!!! Also, he gifted me a free pin, which is super sweet :)!

(the pin in question)

ALSO!!! They added fences in front of the stage as like some sort of ridiculous tiny barricade. This was so funny to me. like, seriously so funny, I laughed about it to my friends for a solid 20 minutes. The supersonic is a TINY venue, and it's also very clearly not built for moshing or crowdsurfing AT ALL. There's like a big column in the middle of the room, it's really annoying. Apparently people still do mosh/crowdsurf but I've never been to a show where they have, IMO it would b kinda unsafe to do it there but what do I know. The fact that there wass a barricade for such a tiny/impractical room was really funny to me, the fences took up like half the room. Idk, to me it shows that the venue isn't really used to dealing with hardcore (and hardcore adjacent) bands/audiences.

(also bonus, the sky was reallypretty on my way to the venue so I took a pic :3)