• Open since 2007, the Scène Michelet is a café-concert located in Nantes.

  • This emblematic place of the music scene, known to all Nantes residents, will close its doors on April 30.

Along boulevard Michelet in Nantes, a large building stands out in the eyes of passers-by.

Covered with a giant red fresco, the building of the café-concert Le Michelet calls out.

Rare are the people of Nantes who do not know this place, at least by sight.

With 200 concerts, 500 groups and more than 20,000 spectators per year, the Michelet Stage is an emblematic place of rock culture.

A place that lives its last moments.

Olivier Piard, creator of the café-concert more than fifteen years ago, has decided to lower the curtain.

"We've been full every night since the announcement of the closure, it's packed.

But I suspected it, ”explains the man who made this café-concert a benchmark for the rock-metal scene in the City of the Dukes.

But now, health concerns and a form of “weariness” pushed him to make an irrevocable decision.

The last musical notes will resound in this room on the evening of Saturday April 30.

From poetry to black metal

A decision carefully considered by the 42-year-old boss, who had already thought about passing the torch in 2018. “I proposed to the employees to resume in Scop.

But it didn't happen,” says Olivier, believing that he no longer finds meaning in what he does.

“We ended up spending our time applying for grants.

It was no longer

Do-It-Yourself

, we had changed the paradigm,” he adds.

Not to mention the health crisis, which has harmed the world of culture.

After more than fifteen years of making spectators dance, the Michelet Stage bows out, along with its founder.

A place that was born in August 2007, when Olivier Piard was turned to the theater stage.

“At that time, there was no artistic coherence.

There was black metal as well as poetry!

We made everything come and go, ”he recalls, with a smile on his face.

Then over the years, this lover of Becquet turned to metal culture at the same time as Le Férailleur, another Nantes bar-concert, thanks in particular to a world-famous festival.

“I had a revelation thanks to Hellfest.

This festival is the locomotive.

Le Férailleur is a wagon and we got into their wheel.

From there, I started having fun.

»

"Ten years of happiness and five years of trouble"

Then the concerts followed, making the café-concert a meeting place for rock and metal lovers.

In the meantime, a few names now known to the general public have trod the Michelet Stage: Biga Ranx, Didier Super, San Severino or even Dave Lombardo, the drummer of the group Slayer.

"Ten years of happiness and five years of trouble", summarizes Olivier.

“But it will have been the best period of my professional life.

It remains a success, we lasted fifteen years!

“A place with which he grew up, and whose future is not yet defined.

Focused on the follow-up to be given to the Michelet Stage, its owner would like to propose an artistic "transition period", before perhaps seeing the place move on to "something else".

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  • Nantes

  • Pays de la Loire

  • Music

  • Bar

  • Concert