In the first half of this year - around April, I think, Roy and I bought two tickets for a music festival that was held in Nyon, near Lake Geneva. We'd seen advertisements about this festival and thought it might be fun to go and when we saw the line-up we decided to get tickets for the Thursday night. We were both big fans of PJ Harvey in the early part of last decade (wow we're getting old) and since she hadn't been touring for a while we thought it would be a great opportunity to catch her while she was here, plus we wanted to see how the Swiss do summer music festivals. The Strokes were also on the line-up who I was keen to see. We eagerly waited for the time of the festival to come and seeing the rain and the temperature drop in the days leading up to the event, we were starting to wonder how much of a "Summer" festival it would be. We knew that we would have to wear warm clothes since the temperature was well under 20 degrees (cold by Aussie's standards). What I neglected to take was my ever-so-trusty hiking boots which are waterproof and perfect for stomping around in mud. Roy was smart but hey, most of you guys remember that he got the highest possible grades in high school, I on the other hand, didn't. So here's me, in my Birkenstocks (perfect summer shoes if you ask me) driving up to the parking lot watching the countless amounts of people walking past in their gum boots. I cursed myself many a time but soon realised that there wasn't anything I could do to remedy my situation - besides driving the hour back home to get my boots. Going back wasn't really an option I wanted to take so I sucked it up, trudged through the mud to the 'sloshy' festival grounds and avoided the giant mug puddles on the way.
I envied the gum booted people as I avoided many paths to get to the food stalls for my rather tasty vegetarian burrito and copped stares from the same people as they wondered why on earth I had chosen Birkenstocks to wear to a mud-filled arena. I didn't let a little bit of mud get in the way of having fun though. I was just more careful about where I put my feet.
Most of the other acts on the line-up I hadn't really heard of so I did a bit of research earlier on in the day and decided on which bands to avoid and which not to. I'm glad I did because the bands we saw were really, really good! We first saw a British chick called Anna Calvi which rocked our (I can't really say socks because as I have plainly explained, I wasn't wearing any) ears off with her booming voice. One of our favourite songs of her set was a fantastic cover of Edith Piaf's Jezebel - definitely worth a listen.
We had to leave her set early because we wanted to get to the main stage to catch the start of PJ Harvey. The crowd anticipated the entrance of the eccentric songstress and before too long her and her rather surprising band of middle-aged, classical-looking men came onto the extremely, minimally set stage. One of her road crew geared her up with an autoharp and she started her somewhat uneventful set with a song from her new album. Having not listened to any of her new stuff and being a strong fan of her old stuff I was a little taken a back at how different she sounded and how unexciting she sounded. I guess it's not her fault that she is extremely introverted but a little bit of crowd acknowledgment would have done her wonders to get the crowd excited - or me at least. We decided not to stick around and as soon as we had left the audience she played one of her olders ones which made me happy. Her new stuff is nowhere near as raw as her old and I'm not convinced that she can pull off a polished style of music.
Our next stop was The Dø. They were perhaps my favourite act of the whole night. They are a french/finnish band with a rather uncategorisable (not really a word but I think you understand what I mean) genre. Their music was fresh, upbeat and considering that we didn't have a very good view, they were really entertaining to watch. I highly recommend you check them out!
Unfortunately a downside to Europe is the amount of places people can smoke. I didn't really realised how much I appreciated Australia's smoking (or anti-smoking if you will) laws until we moved to Europe. You hop off a train in Switzerland and all of a sudden your nostrils are filled with cigarette smoke. So you can imagine what it was like at this festival. Under the huge tents people were lighting up all around us and I'm not the shortest person around and I was finding it hard to catch a whiff of fresh, smoke-free air. So I couldn't hang around in the tent watching The Dø much longer with the amount of cigarette smoke wafting around. So we ducked out of the tent and went to secure our spot ready for The Strokes. I'm not the HUGEST Strokes fan (don't own CD's and such) but I enjoy their music and also the music of the lead singer's (Julian Casablancas) solo releases so it wasn't long before Roy and I, along with the crowd were bopping our heads along to the music.
Unfortunately the cigarette smoke was getting to me again so we opted to leave. My throat was hurting from inhaling secondhand smoke. Plus we wanted to take advantage of being some of the first people to leave so we could get our car out before the masses decided to. We didn't escape the crowds though, we still had to wait a while to get our car out of the muddy pit called a car park. It seems that we weren't the only ones to try and escape before the night ended.
Despite the mud, the few showers of rain and a little disappointment with the set of someone who I was really looking forward to seeing, I had a great night out with Roy and the crowds. The food and drinks weren't too over-priced (amazing for Switzerland), the crowds weren't too rowdy (besides the drunk guy that decided to pee whilst standing in the audience for The Strokes and proceeded to jump in it to demonstrate that his pee was just a part of the mud) and it wasn't too hot (which is always a downside to Australian summer music festivals). I was even congratulated by a guy as we were leaving on the cleanliness of my Birkenstocked feet - which made me happy.
Some rather dodgy photos - taken on my phone of the night.
I envied the gum booted people as I avoided many paths to get to the food stalls for my rather tasty vegetarian burrito and copped stares from the same people as they wondered why on earth I had chosen Birkenstocks to wear to a mud-filled arena. I didn't let a little bit of mud get in the way of having fun though. I was just more careful about where I put my feet.
Most of the other acts on the line-up I hadn't really heard of so I did a bit of research earlier on in the day and decided on which bands to avoid and which not to. I'm glad I did because the bands we saw were really, really good! We first saw a British chick called Anna Calvi which rocked our (I can't really say socks because as I have plainly explained, I wasn't wearing any) ears off with her booming voice. One of our favourite songs of her set was a fantastic cover of Edith Piaf's Jezebel - definitely worth a listen.
We had to leave her set early because we wanted to get to the main stage to catch the start of PJ Harvey. The crowd anticipated the entrance of the eccentric songstress and before too long her and her rather surprising band of middle-aged, classical-looking men came onto the extremely, minimally set stage. One of her road crew geared her up with an autoharp and she started her somewhat uneventful set with a song from her new album. Having not listened to any of her new stuff and being a strong fan of her old stuff I was a little taken a back at how different she sounded and how unexciting she sounded. I guess it's not her fault that she is extremely introverted but a little bit of crowd acknowledgment would have done her wonders to get the crowd excited - or me at least. We decided not to stick around and as soon as we had left the audience she played one of her olders ones which made me happy. Her new stuff is nowhere near as raw as her old and I'm not convinced that she can pull off a polished style of music.
Our next stop was The Dø. They were perhaps my favourite act of the whole night. They are a french/finnish band with a rather uncategorisable (not really a word but I think you understand what I mean) genre. Their music was fresh, upbeat and considering that we didn't have a very good view, they were really entertaining to watch. I highly recommend you check them out!
Unfortunately a downside to Europe is the amount of places people can smoke. I didn't really realised how much I appreciated Australia's smoking (or anti-smoking if you will) laws until we moved to Europe. You hop off a train in Switzerland and all of a sudden your nostrils are filled with cigarette smoke. So you can imagine what it was like at this festival. Under the huge tents people were lighting up all around us and I'm not the shortest person around and I was finding it hard to catch a whiff of fresh, smoke-free air. So I couldn't hang around in the tent watching The Dø much longer with the amount of cigarette smoke wafting around. So we ducked out of the tent and went to secure our spot ready for The Strokes. I'm not the HUGEST Strokes fan (don't own CD's and such) but I enjoy their music and also the music of the lead singer's (Julian Casablancas) solo releases so it wasn't long before Roy and I, along with the crowd were bopping our heads along to the music.
Unfortunately the cigarette smoke was getting to me again so we opted to leave. My throat was hurting from inhaling secondhand smoke. Plus we wanted to take advantage of being some of the first people to leave so we could get our car out before the masses decided to. We didn't escape the crowds though, we still had to wait a while to get our car out of the muddy pit called a car park. It seems that we weren't the only ones to try and escape before the night ended.
Despite the mud, the few showers of rain and a little disappointment with the set of someone who I was really looking forward to seeing, I had a great night out with Roy and the crowds. The food and drinks weren't too over-priced (amazing for Switzerland), the crowds weren't too rowdy (besides the drunk guy that decided to pee whilst standing in the audience for The Strokes and proceeded to jump in it to demonstrate that his pee was just a part of the mud) and it wasn't too hot (which is always a downside to Australian summer music festivals). I was even congratulated by a guy as we were leaving on the cleanliness of my Birkenstocked feet - which made me happy.
Some rather dodgy photos - taken on my phone of the night.
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| PJ Harvey |
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| Anna Calvi |
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