A Beautiful, Psychedelic Night in Dublin: La Femme at The Academy
While doing research on Dublin before going abroad, I’d heard the music scene was shifting—something about the raw energy of Kneecap and the gritty poetry of Fontaines D.C. pulling the city into a new, albeit mainstream, musical era. There’s an appetite here for the unexpected, the experimental, the off-center. That’s why when I saw that La Femme—a French psychedelic punk band known for their spooky synths and genre-blurring theatrics—was playing at The Academy in March, I knew I had to go. Though not Irish, La Femme fits well in the emerging Dublin scene: one that’s open, eclectic, and increasingly international.
La Femme is a French psychedelic punk band—equal parts eerie, glam, and electric. Founded in 2010 by guitarist Sacha Got and keyboardist Marlon Magnée in Biarritz, their sound is hypnotic and theatrical: surf rock meets synthwave meets haunted carousel. They pull from cold wave and yéyé, but twist it into something uniquely theirs—a spookiness with definite influence from The Velvet Underground.
La Femme has always embraced this duality: experimental but poppy, chaotic but precise, retro but futuristic. Between 2010 and 2013, they released three EPs—La Femme EP, La Podium #1, and La Femme. Their first full-length debut, Psycho Tropical Berlin, dropped in 2013 and quickly established them as genre-benders with a flair for drama and dance floors alike. Their 2024 tour marked the release of Rock Machine, their latest album.
This show in Dublin was set at The Academy—an intimate venue typically known for techno and house sets courtesy of the local Index series. But tonight, it would host something entirely different. Not a DJ in sight. Just a stage awaiting a band of theatrical misfits, ready to turn the night sideways.
They came on stage with a roar. The literal band of misfits had their set position on stage and began to play immediately, and I had given each one a name—their personal style was perfectly unlike each other yet incredibly in-tune with the music. The woman directly in front of me on stage wore a tiny top hat tilted to the left side of her head as she pressed the keys of her keyboard—she was “Tiny Hat Girl”, aka Fanny. The main vocalist, Sacha, was “Beetlejuice”. Marlon was “Newsie”, Dan Lyons was “Pink Eye Man” due to his red eyeliner, Michelle Blades was “Go-Go Girl”. There were at least four other people on stage, but through the constant instrument exchange, eclectic outfits, and the desperate need to keep on dancing, I lost track. At some point someone was playing the bongos.
Their songs were trilingual—a French, Spanish, and English combination where every member of the audience could sing along, even if it was just syllables they didn’t understand (cough cough, me).
During “Bye Bye Paris,” the lights showed yellow, and Beetlejuice (Sacha) shimmied at the front of the stage, pseudo-rapping in French. Behind him, Fanny tapped a tambourine and let long notes spill from the mic. Their musical styles clashed and complemented, filling the concert hall. During “Love is Over,” the audience swayed to Lyons’ voice washed in a purple stage light. His drawl. His accented English telling us what we’ve left to the wind. The crowd swayed in time, leaning on the person next to them. Arms around each other, the audience looked up to the voice on the mic deep in trance.
It’s right to say their most popular song, “Sur La Planche 2013,” received the largest reaction from the crowd. The lights were red and, to the left of me at the railings, three men were jumping on each other, exciting everyone around them. They were infectious, raising the energy levels, the fist-pumping, head-bopping, hip-shaking movements of everyone around them, including me. I came out of the venue soaked through my shirt in sweat.
Each song—whether from their newest album or over a decade old—made the crowd jump, sway, pump their arms, jerk, pop, crash, sing. To each other, to their lovers, to their friends, to the band. The audience was fully engaged. You could hear each instrument distinctly, each sound adding to the fullness of the experience. The three keyboards downstage set the emotional tone. The drummer and the bongo player supported that fullness. Almost no phones were in the air.
This is a concert!
A concert where I made friends with the French girl behind me because she caught Tiny Hat Girl’s tambourine, and I got a setlist. A concert where I walked out into the Dublin cold in a haze, ears ringing. A concert where my friend—who knew nothing about the band—turned to me afterward and said she felt them in her heart, in her lungs, deep in her chest. “How did they do that?” she asked.
La Femme’s beauty lies in each member: unique just like everyone else.
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I’m writing this ahead of seeing La Femme again in Copenhagen, thinking back to the first time I saw them in Dublin. That show stuck with me. There was something about their presence—otherworldly but deeply in sync with the city’s energy. They played against the backdrop of Dublin’s rich musical history, one rooted in rebellion, counterculture, and the collision of grit and melody. La Femme didn’t just perform in that context—they fit into it. I’m curious to see how their sound lands somewhere else, in a different city, on a different night.