Concert of the Week: Nouvelle Vague at the North Beach Bandshell

Though you might want to attend Radiohead at the American Airlines Arena, tickets cost more than your first-born. So we turn our attention to another act. Nouvelle Vague, the French New Wave band that has made a career out of covering pop songs set to bossa nova grooves, returns to Miami for the first time in more than ten years.

By Angel Melendez

March 27, 2017

Photo by Julian Marshall

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Though you might want to attend Radiohead at the American Airlines Arena, tickets cost more than your first-born.

So we turn our attention to another act. Nouvelle Vague, the French New Wave band that has made a career out of covering pop songs set to bossa nova grooves, returns to Miami for the first time in more than ten years.

Formed by musicians Olivier Libaux and Marc Collin and powered vocally by a cavalcade of guest singers over the years, Nouvelle Vague kicks off its U.S. tour Wednesday at the North Beach Bandshell in support of I Could Be Happy, an album a decade in the making. The record features a combination of originals and covers. Some of the reworked versions of familiar songs include the title track, originally by Altered States; the Cure’s “All Cats Are Grey,” which twinkles in the hands of Nouvelle Vague; and a drunk but tender interpretation of the Ramones’ “I Wanna Be Sedated.”

Miami New Times recently spoke with Libaux, who described the band’s love for the material, as well as the freedom to do “whatever we want.” That mentality is precisely what should make this performance a breezy, easygoing night on the beach.

Nouvelle Vague
7 p.m. Wednesday, March 29, at the North Beach Bandshell, 7275 Collins Ave., Miami Beach; 305-672-5202; northbeachbandshell.com. Tickets cost $30 to 35 via ticketfly.com.

Angel Melendez is an unabashed geek and a massive music nerd. A graduate of Florida Atlantic University and an accomplished failure at two other universities, Angel is a lush and an insufferable know-it-all, and has way better taste in music than you.

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