Gojira Concerts Setlist

Gojira, formerly known as Godzilla, is a French heavy metal band. The founding members were vocalist and guitarist Joe Duplantier (born in 1976 in Paris, France), his brother, drummer Mario Duplantier (1981, Bayonne, France), guitarist Christian Andreu (1976, Bayonne, France), and bassist Alexandre Cornillon.

The Duplantier brothers found heavy metal while the older of the two, Joe, was a teenager, while Mario was just 12. They formed the band “Eclipse” in their high school years, which saw no success. In 1996, however, they decided to go on a new endeavor, and recruited Andreu and Cornillon to create a new heavy metal band. They initially chose the name “Godzilla”. They shared a love for the American metal band Metallica.

They started to perform the earliest versions of a Gojira concert small local bars in their hometown, Bayonne, while also selling cassettes of their songs to the audience. They produced two demo tapes, and by 1997, they went on a tour in Southern France. In 1999, they won the "tremplin Ultrasons" (“Ultrasound Springboard”), a French music festival that is dedicated to finding new, up-and-coming artists. As their star started to rise, they got to open for bigger bands, such as the Norwegian death metal group Immortal.

Their debut album, “Terra Incognita”, came out in March 2001. By that time, they were forced to change their name to “Gojira” due to the copyright issues involving the name of the classic movie monster. Gojira is the direct transcription of the Japanese name of the monster. Also, Cornillon was replaced by Jean-Michel Labadie on the bass - and that line-up has remained intact to this day. However, the album never saw any significant commercial success until later re-releases.

The first album by Gojira that managed to get on the local charts in France was their third one, “From Mars to Sirius” from September 2005, which peaked at the #44 spot on the SNEP chart. Since then, the French heavy metal band has released 4 more studio albums, thus they have 7 in total. Their best selling record is the new Gojira album, “Fortitude” from April 2021, which actually topped the Billboard 200 list in the US upon its release, having sold around 30,000 copies in its first week.

Gojira’s biggest hits to date are “Born in Winter” (2012), “L’Enfant Sauvage” (also 2012), “Stranded” (2016), and ”Silvera” (also 2016). The band is known to frequently include messages about environmental protection in the lyrics of their songs. Check if a Gojira concert is coming to your town soon on the page above.