As soon as the gates to the lower part of the Domaine National de Saint-Cloud, the site of Rock en Seine, southwest of Paris, were opened on Wednesday, August 23, there was a mad rush. Not since the first edition in 2003 – when 10 groups were invited for a single day – has there been such a large-scale event. And in just over half an hour, the lawn in front of the main stage was almost a third full. Most of them were teenagers – whereas the festival's audience tends to be made up of young adults in their 30s – determined not to give up a single square centimeter of ground in order to be as close as possible to the star of the evening, 21-year-old American singer-songwriter Billie Eilish, scheduled to perform at 10 pm.

Just over a year ago, on June 22, 2022, the young woman drew 20,000 people to the Accor Arena in Paris. For Rock en Seine, it was probably her name alone that attracted almost double that number. This was her only summer date in France – apart from a fleeting appearance for three acoustic songs at the Global Citizen event in June.

But before Billie Eilish, six female musicians and their bands performed on the big stage or the smaller Firestone stage, at the other end of the venue, on the first day of the 100% all-female festival. Lucie Antunes opened the day at 5:35 pm with her inventive assemblages of musical influences: pop and sonic explorations of rhythmic and melodic percussion. Another fine discovery was the warm, full voice of England's Mae Stephens and the sometimes funky pop spirit of her music. And there was Hannah Grae, from Wales, who ranges from urgent punk ("Propaganda") to ballad pop ("Jaded"), sometimes reminiscent of the American band Blondie.

At 10 pm, there was a standing ovation, the first notes of an instrumental, with a few siren effects and a white spotlight, and here came Billie Eilish. Although some of her songs, interviews and statements evoke her depression, worries and anxieties about the world's troubles, particularly environmental issues, as well as the hopes of young people, Billie Eilish was far from a forlorn figure. She smiled frequently and moved around the entire stage, with a staircase at its center and an overhang in the pit. She jumped up and down and greeted with obvious joy the participation from the audience, who joined in on the choruses and verses of many of her songs.

Joining her on keyboards and guitar was her brother Finneas O'Connell – the singer kept her first two names as her artist name – and on drums was Andrew Marshall. The siblings perform music that relies heavily on rhythmic sequences, an electro style lacking in much depth, with occasional breaks in the flow, lending several songs a somewhat spoken/sung feel. It's a slightly monotonous quality that failed to strongly impress.

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