JAMES BAKER UNFOLDS ROMY ROSE AT LE TRIANON IN PARIS
Written and Captured By | Rebecca Kozierow
As the lights faded across Le Trianon, the evening began to take shape. Rallye opened the night with an entirely different kind of energy, bringing a sharp, contemporary edge to the stage.
The five-piece band from Colombes sits somewhere between rock and pop while deliberately resisting either label. Describing their own sound as “internet rock,” they combine guitars and live instrumentation with synths and electronic production, constantly blurring the line between the two.
“Playlist” stood out as one of Rallye’s strongest moments. Built around something as simple as a playlist left behind by a past relationship, the track allows a whole layer of memory to surface through references spanning French chanson, rap and rock. Live, that sense of nostalgia took on even more weight, making it one of the most memorable moments of the set.
After an interval, the room darkened again.
James Baker appeared toward the back of the stage, almost motionless at first, framed by low, shadowy lighting. There was something deliberately understated about his entrance, giving the atmosphere time to settle around him as he eased the audience into his world before steadily increasing the pressure.
It did not take long.
Baker’s relationship with cinema extends far beyond visual references. At Le Trianon, that instinct seemed to shape the rhythm of the show itself. Rap, alternative pop, electronic textures and bursts of rock flowed into one another almost like scene changes, while Baker’s own presence shifted just as sharply — one moment introspective and precise, the next explosive, physical and completely uninhibited.
That became particularly intriguing halfway through the concert, when Baker disappeared from view entirely.
In his place, footage of him backstage took over the screen — a sequence of spontaneous interactions and movement. It was loose, playful and unpredictable, yet somehow completely consistent with the character of the show.
Then came the reveal.
Baker returned on his signature stilts, towering above the stage.
The stilts were more than a quick visual gimmick. He remained elevated for a while, carrying that larger-than-life presence while welcoming another guest at the piano. Shortly afterward, a cameraman entered the room and began feeding live images directly onto the screen behind Baker. The lens moved between the performer and the audience, turning faces in the crowd into part of the visual language of the concert. The room was no longer simply watching the show — it was appearing inside it.
It was theatrical without ever becoming so polished that it lost its edge.
There is a sense of freedom in the way James Baker occupies a stage. He may approach his work with a filmmaker’s eye, but he performs with a rock frontman’s instinct: physical, impulsive and constantly searching for another way to break the distance between himself and the room.
Eventually, that instinct took him beyond the stage altogether.
At one point, Baker stepped directly into the audience, continuing the performance from the middle of the crowd, surrounded by the people who had been singing every word back at him.
Later, throwing himself into a sea of hands, Baker allowed the room to carry him before eventually managing to rise to his feet above the audience.
With no pit separating the stage from the first rows at Le Trianon, the connection felt particularly immediate. The floor quite literally shook beneath a crowd that seemed to know every word, every beat and every transition. There was no passive audience here: people danced hard, shouted lyrics back at him and moved with the same intensity Baker was projecting from the stage.
As the show moved toward its final moments, that sense of collective energy expanded once again.
Members of Baker’s touring team poured onto the stage around him, dancing as he continued to sing and transforming the space into something closer to a shared celebration than a conventional concert finale.
For a few minutes, the stage no longer seemed to belong to one performer. The people who had helped build the show became part of it, the audience remained completely immersed in the moment, and the distinction between artist, crew and crowd finally seemed to dissolve.
It almost felt like an end-credits scene — loose, joyful and unexpectedly familiar after a night filled with carefully staged entrances and cinematic interludes.
Then came “Rose.”
Closing the night with the track felt like a final scene rather than simply a final song. James Baker had spent the evening constructing a world, and for one night at Le Trianon, the entire room seemed to live inside it.