This will be their last concert, this Saturday evening. The rock group Shaka Ponk says goodbye to its fans with a final performance in Paris. Decision taken to be in agreement with the environmental convictions of the group, which did not fit well with the waste of resources necessary for a tour.
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“ I’m Picky », one of the best known titles by Shaka Ponk, will certainly be performed on the Accor Arena stage this Saturday evening. Final concert after twenty years of crazy electro-rock and the end of touring for the group, before its planned extinction.
It’s a question of consistency for Samaha Sam, one of the voices of the group. “ We stop because we need to be in sync with our parallel ecological battles. We make music and we realize that Shaka Ponk has become a huge machine. We have screens… it’s too big. Today, we cannot defend ecology, start talking about protecting the planet, and at the same time do concerts that consume like that », explains the singer, guest of Anne-Cécile Bras in the show “C’est pas du vent”.
“ We realize that in music, ecology really has very little space and we also said to ourselves that this is perhaps an opportunity to shed light on this fight “, she continues. For fans unable to attend, the last concert will be broadcast in cinemas during a single screening on April 3. And their latest album, “ Shaka Ponk », has just been published in a reissue enriched with previously unpublished material.
Ecological and social convictions
“ We are 1,000% but with a lot of emotions. This is what I feel the most “, also confided Samaha Sam to AFP, met in the group’s historic lair, in the heart of the capital. “ And a little anxiety too… », bounces back Frah, another voice of Shaka Ponkevoking a “ complex, psychological and emotional tension » in this decision which they nevertheless carefully considered. “ We find ourselves in a paradoxical situation, where we stop doing what we love to do. When we started this band, we never imagined this », he adds.
The rock group has never been a mystery of its ecological values and deep social. Shaka Ponk had, however, tried to make his concerts as eco-responsible as possible, from the hunt for plastic to vegan meals to the refusal of certain brands that were not compatible with his positioning, but these efforts weighed little compared to the weight that represents the impact of traveling thousands of spectators to each concert.
An equation to which the group has not found a solution. To get an idea, a festival of 50,000 spectators in France corresponds to 1,000 tonnes of CO2 emitted, or 400 Paris-New York round trips. Shaka Ponk therefore bows out, right in his boots.
Also readShaka Ponk, last record and farewell tour against a backdrop of anger