Lourmarin, Friday 1^st June 2018, 3pm: we get off the train. It’s hot and sunny and we’re ready for a fantastically noisy evening from some of the hottest stars in rock ‘n’ roll and electro music at Festival Yeah!. Incredible talent, great bands: as music filled the air, we met up with the #FERMOBPEOPLE behind this event, Laurent Garnier.

HEAVY, WAVY, GROOVY

Laurent Garnier, a producer and DJ, created Festival Yeah! in Lourmarin along with his close friends Arthur Durignon and Nicolas Galina. It’s developed a real reputation over the last 6 years – it’s said that this festival was created to silence the cicadas for a few hours! (Article by Thomas V., Artistic Director and fan of cicadas). Lourmarin has just what it takes when it comes to acoustics, welcoming more than 900 people for this 3-day festival, full of good vibrations.

Laurent Garnier, DJ and founder of the Yeah! festival

Rock’n’roll attitude with an elegant feel 

On arrival, we’re thrown by the surprising setting: the festival is held in a château. Who said that rock ‘n’ roll music had to be bad mannered? The line up for the first day: The Limiñanas, Moon Gogo, West Coast Crew and a host of unique and talented artists set the tone.

With olive trees at the entrance to the château, a friendly feel throughout and Fermob furniture looking perfectly at home in all the festival’s bars, the stage is set. Or almost: the venue fills up with a good-natured crowd of families and friends, posing for impromptu photos with Mario, Luigi and male fairies too! The music blares to the delight of the crowd, dancing around in free-flowing motion. It’s all about rock ‘n’ roll music with an elegant (not a decadent) feel: Laurent Garnier and his friends love getting out of their comfort zones, all while making other people happy.

FESTIVAL YEAH! ROCKS ! 

The word “festival” really doesn’t convey our experience. Laurent Garnier wants Yeah! to be “a family event in a great setting, where you can enjoy delicious food and drink prepared by really friendly chefs, with plenty of variety, and where you can listen to great music.” He loves bringing people together, encouraging people to get involved and working with people from Lubéron and the surrounding area. “It’s a festival run by locals, for locals: everyone’s included.”

Getting everyone involved, trusting in and counting on other people: concepts which are the perfect match with our vision of outdoor life and explain why we at Fermob wanted our furniture to be a part of the Yeah! adventure. If you ask Laurent what the festival means to him, he’ll reply that “it’s all about sharing”. In his opinion, the event is all down to the work of the ever-smiling staff and volunteers. Without them, there wouldn’t be any festival. The aim is “to create real unity”. We’re all about bringing people together and creating connections too, so naturally, we wanted Fermob furniture to be used at Festival Yeah!.

LAURENT GARNIER, born to make people happy?

What’s important about this event, in Laurent Garnier’s view? “Offering something different, particularly when it comes to the château: as a visitor, you’d never think that we’d organise a festival here.” And behind it all lies his desire to do some good and to make people happy. Mission accomplished, we say!

Time flies at the festival: it’s time to pack up at 3am. And even if the cicadas were undoubtedly rather cross to have been upstaged at Lourmarin, we want to thank Laurent Garnier for his warm welcome, his generosity and the great time we had listening to live music!

Here is a Festival Yeah! playlist concocted by us, let’s rock !