"OHHHHHHHHH! OHHHHHH-OH-OHOHHHH! OH-OHOHHHHH-OHOHHHHHHH! OH-OH!”
That’s the melody 16,000 people are yelling in unison inside Paris’s Accor Arena. It’s as enthusiastic and awe-inspiring as the mass chanting at a football game, yet it’s the sound of a death metal crowd.
Gojira have just finished their biggest-ever indoor show, on their first-ever headline arena tour, and they’re standing onstage as a home crowd serenade them with the wordless hook of meditative song The Chant. They are speechless. Frontman Joe Duplantier is near tears.
Tonight is both well earned and long anticipated. The band have been working their way up metal’s ranks since 1996, and announced this arena run in 2021, off the back of that year’s beloved Fortitude album. Then Covid restrictions got in the way, meaning they had to push it back a year. Some bands would have been pissed-off about a situation like this. Not Gojira. When we chat to Joe and his little brother, drummer Mario, backstage before the show, they claim they were unfazed.
“Covid was a worldwide situation,” Mario says, “so I can’t really complain about it. You have to observe what’s going on and not be an egotistical, selfish person saying, ‘I want
