Off the back of their most successful year ever, we joined Gojira in Paris for a spectacular homecoming show like no other. Here’s what went down

WORDS: MATT MILLS • PICTURES: BRYCE HALL AND ERRICK EASTERDAY

"OHHHHHHHHH! OHHHHHH-OH-OHOHHHH! OH-OHOHHHHH-OHOHHHHHHH! OH-OH!”

That’s the melody 16,000people 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 to play my fucking show!’ We were super-chill during this moment.”

We believe him. After all, Joe and Mario are hours away from the biggest gig of their lives, and they’re chill as fuck. If there are any nerves or giddiness, they’re buried deep.

“Our attitude, from the very beginning, has been: ‘OK, we’re a death metal band from a little town, but technically a show this big is possible,’” Joe explains calmly. “We were always conscious of the fact that a mental attitude can either stop you from something or push you towards what you really want. When you project what you want out there into the world, you make it possible.”