Hocus Pocus has spent the better part of three decades building one of the more distinctive catalogs in French hip-hop — a six-piece collective from Nantes whose reputation was built on reconciling live acoustic instrumentation with rap at a time when most acts weren’t even posing the question. Their October 29 appearance at the Oncenter Crouse Hinds Theater in Syracuse is, according to Songkick tour listings, the closing date of their current run — meaning Central New York gets the version of this band with the most miles on it.
About the Show
The show is billed as the “Hocus Pocus Taste-A-Long Experience,” suggesting a curated or immersive presentation, though the specific format had not been detailed in available sources ahead of the August 14 on-sale. The band itself is well-documented: 20Syl (rapper/producer) and DJ Greem anchor a live ensemble that includes David Le Deunff on guitar and vocals, Hervé Golard on bass, Mathieu Lelièvre on piano, and Antoine Saint-Jean on drums. Their sound draws from jazz, soul, funk, and world music — an approach to acoustic hip-hop that is considerably harder to execute live than it reads on paper. The group formed in Nantes in 1995 and achieved mainstream recognition with the breakthrough album Place 54 in 2007. Their most recent studio effort, 16 Pièces (2010), was released through Motown France and Universal Music France and included the single “Beautiful Losers” featuring UK soul vocalist Alice Russell. The wider catalog of collaborators includes Fred Wesley — the trombonist who spent years in James Brown’s orbit — as well as Oxmo Puccino and Akhenaton of the French rap group IAM. Live, the show runs 90 minutes to two hours, built around strobe lights, smoke machines, and multicolored visual effects. The band has maintained a deliberate touring schedule in recent years: six performances in 2025, five in 2024, and five in 2023.
Venue & Logistics
The Oncenter Crouse Hinds Theater sits at 411 Montgomery Street in downtown Syracuse, part of the larger Mulroy Civic Center complex. It is a proper seated theater — the kind of room where a six-piece band with live bass, piano, and drums can work with the acoustics rather than against them. The show is scheduled for 7 p.m. on Thursday, October 29, which happens to be the night before Halloween. That the venue calendar landed on this date for a band named Hocus Pocus reads less like scheduling and more like inevitability.
Tickets
Tickets go on sale Friday, August 14. No ticket price was available from sources at the time of publication. Buy tickets