Philippe Manoeuvre - Un Enfant Du Rock Raconte - Transbordeur - Villeurbanne

Transbordeur welcomes Philippe Manoeuvre

At Transbordeur in Villeurbanne, we are delighted to open our doors to the legendary rock historian and journalist Philippe Manoeuvre with his live storytelling event, Un enfant du rock raconte. From our vantage point as a venue known for intimate energy and expansive sound, we recognize how naturally this format fits our stage: one of the most distinctive voices in French rock culture, unfolding decades of encounters, backstage revelations, and musical revolutions for an audience eager to listen, react, and relive. The title resonates with the lineage of the artist’s trajectory—an unmistakable echo of a generation-defining television era—yet the evening is resolutely present-tense: a living, breathing conversation about why rock still matters and how it continues to move people in a room like ours. Expect an immersive, human-scale experience, shaped by Manoeuvre’s razor-sharp memory, his eye for the telling detail, and his enduring joy in sharing music’s mythology with those who carry it in their hearts.

A living archive and a very current voice

What makes this date at Transbordeur so timely is not only the richness of the archive Philippe Manoeuvre carries—interviews with icons, road stories, magazine wars, cult broadcasts—but the way he keeps these materials active in the present. His touring cycle around Un enfant du rock raconte confirms how contemporary his perspective remains: he is out in front of audiences across the country, updating the canon with fresh context, reframing classic albums for new ears, and keeping the dialogue open between generations. Recent seasons have seen him renew that dialogue through public talks, special live appearances, book-signing encounters, and curated tributes that link anniversaries in rock history with the here-and-now of today’s stages and listeners. For us as a venue, it’s a rare pleasure to host an artist who inhabits memory without becoming a museum piece: Manoeuvre sets stories in motion, questions received wisdom, and invites our community to revisit the music that has scored their lives.

On our stage, Un enfant du rock raconte unfolds as an evening of proximity and punch: the rhythm of a seasoned raconteur, the cadence of a born editor, and the crackle of eyewitness testimony. While the spotlight is on the spoken word, the experience is resolutely musical in spirit—shaped by the friction of ideas, the grain of the voice, and the pulse of collective listening. The Transbordeur hall is tailored to support that intensity: every seat tuned to the nuance of an anecdote, every row close enough to catch an aside, every moment amplified by the crowd’s recognition when a name or a year lands just right. Lyon’s audiences know their rock lineage, and Manoeuvre meets them at that level—summoning Lou Reed, Iggy Pop, Patti Smith, the Stones, and countless others not as distant monuments but as vivid presences in a living chain of influence. It is storytelling as a concert would be: a long crescendo, a shared catharsis, and the sense of having traveled together through the heart of a culture.