By Jen
Saturday
Amazingly I
had packed on Friday already. I wanted to put together some dvds with “mad
about you” episodes saturday morning while waiting for my uncle.
He was
gonna bring me down to the airport and have breakfast with me, so sweet!
I only had
my small backpack and a bag with personal things on me.
I was glad
we went rather early, because the queues were endless and moving slowly.
Thanks to
my curiosity we figured i had to check myself in on those “easyjet kiosks” and
get a badge for my backpack.
So you
queue to have your boarding card and passport checked and to give up your
luggage.
It was a
short goodbye since it took ages to get to where the plane was leaving.
I had two
security checkups. And then we had to wait all in one bigger room, with maybe
20 seats and 300 people.
I couldn’t
help but think of “Schindler’s List”. It’s a bit macabre i know but it was
crowded.
The flight
was delayed in Geneva by twenty minutes, yet luckily i made it in time for my
train to AIGLE, where my friend Valérie was gonna pick me up. Well since she
was still at work, her husband would pick me up.
So far so
good - of course I had no seat reservations, the train was nearly full but I
finally sat and relaxed a bit, til the ticket man came and told me i was
supposed to change trains at Lausanne, the stop before!
How uncool
is that?
I had a
print out from the night before that said nothing about changing trains and of
course the next stop, Fribourg, was almost an hour away.
So by the
time I got out of the train ,I was in
the middle of Switzerland.
The little detour cost me 22 Franks
(maybe around 20 dollars?) and two hours more time!
In the
meantime i was picked up by my friend herself, as she was off work now :)
We haven’t
seen each other in ages, well i think around six years, and hardly anyone of us
is in contact with other former class mates, except for Claudi and Maja on my
side.
We had
traditional swiss raclette, which is absolutely yummy. I knew it basically, but
i have not seen the raclette grill they own yet. Cannot wait to show my dad the
picture i took!
It was good
fun and very delicious!
Everyone
was rather tired cause of work and such so i went to bed quite early, not a bad
idea of course for the day ahead.
Alison and Terri
had been in Sierre/Siders since Friday evening, I had a text telling me where
to go roughly, as they have checked out the venue already!
Sunday
I got up to
say goodbye to Valérie around 6.30 am...was gonna go get ready, but my train
wasn’t leaving until 8.32 am, so I went back to bed until about 7.45am.
I couldn’t
really sleep, as I was worried the alarm wouldn’t go off, it had some blinking
signal that looked suspicious!
I got ready
and dressed:
Since this
trip is costing a fortune already, I did not buy any winter shoes, i just took
my nike sneakers and bought thermo socks, which i wore over regular socks! They
just had to do!
Also since
i was unsure about the weather and how warm we might get being surrounded by
the crowd and jumping through the concert, I didn’t want to bring my really thick
winter/ski jacket, as you cannot open it with a zipper, it’s like a jumper and
you sweat like crazy under it.
So i
decided for lots of Layers:
Tanktop/thermo
underwear long sleeved shirt and long undertrouser/two t-shirts and a sweatshirt
and my outdoorsy pants, which kinda have two layers in them, plus a really
thick sort of autumn-y shirt under my windproof jacket.
I was all
set next to the standard gloves, hat and scarf!
To say it
in advance, I was not cold at all, I was occasionally very warm, but opened my
jacked a bit, it was all perfect. Just my toes were freezing a bit, but that’s
normal cause we weren’t doing nothing but standing there for hours.
Anyway - on
my way to Sierre/Siders… Alison and Terri wanted to be up early, they had said
around 10 am.
They’ve
been up there since 9 am!
I didn’t
get lost on the train this time, did find that cable-mountain train called
FUNICULAIRE which is Alison and Terri’s word of the weekend.
Of course
that one didn’t leave until 10.15 am, so i was late already.
Thought the
lift was just outside this mountain train, but hell no....swiss people dont
seem to like signs much, no matter how touristy the place!
I had to
“walk” into the center of that small town and try really hard finding signs for
the ski lift up the actual mountain where the festival takes place, which is
called Grand Signal.
I was so
out of breath cause of the mostly up and some downs since im oh so fit and
worked out!
Finally on
that ski lift thingy which is huge and has loads of people, I think there were
only a handful of people who didn’t have skis on them.
I had to
exchange the texas ticket for a different pass to get on the lift. Quite pissed
at myself for not asking to keep the old ticket as a souvenir, but i made a
copy of it at home!
Anyhoo, the
cashier was one of the first people to think us crazy, since I had asked him if
the ski lift would cost extra aswell and he said “No, it’s too expensive
already, you can ski all day and see the concert and go up and down as you
like.”When I told to his stunned face that I wasn’t going to ski, he was silent
for a bit.
FINALLY
arrive on top (11am) and look for familiar faces.....I get directions to the
stage and to where the entrance is. The actual entrance is like 150 meters from
the stage, through uneven and partly flaky and high snow and to the side of the
stage. So i could not see the front of it from the entrance, just the area
where the people would stand.
Why is this discription important?
Because I couldn’t get to the stage, as I was told it’s not open yet , only
around 12 ish or 1 ish...
GREAT! I
kept looking around for Alison and Terri since I couldn’t imagine them being
late and even if so they would’ve texted me as low as the credit might be.
So I tried
to find a reason, and found it ....they were already infront of the stage as
when they arrived the “barriers” haven’t been up yet and just now TEXAS were
soundchecking!
Which made
my frustrating place a bitter sweet experience as I saw Alison and Terri moving
to the music and could only hear the lovely sound of TEXAS whilst I was waving
constantly to get their attention - which was hopeless of course !
Thank
goodness for crap MTV interviews that Sharleen is nice enough to attend cause
that made Alison and Terri come down in my direction (as there was a second
entrance further up the hill).
There was
this little imbiss place, a small wooden house about 300 meters behind the
stage and somehow they got Sharleen down there (prob in a snow mobile) to give
an interview.
I finally
met up with Alison and Terri J and we went over there.
We could
hardly hear the questions as security kept us at distance.
Sharleen looked great, dressed all
in black, with a nice hat to match it.
We heard the
reporter ask her at one point what her favorite plant was, and I think Sharleen
was a little startled by the (retarded) question herself.
The whole
thing didnt last that long, it was interesting to watch, not in favor of MTV
though! Sharleen was about to go back to the stage area, but someone asked her
to sign something and she did it without hesitation. We went down to speak to
her, and i told her that “Dirk says hi and how he is sorry he cant be here” and
she asked back on how he was which was
so sweet.
Sadly Dirk
couldn’t be there with us and we missed him.
Alison was
chatting away with Shar a bit as she had
seen her and Terri for the soundcheck.
I didn’t
really hear what they were talking about as I watched some of the “so called
friends” of Texas around me.
After
Alison got a hug from Sharleen we went back to the entrance, got our stamps and
“hole in our pass” and could go in to save a place in first row!
Of course
only a handful of people had been there, it was only noonish or maybe latest
half past noon!
And since
it was and Husky Rescue were having a rather boring and uneventful soundcheck
we went for a last trip to the loo!
Oh how
fatal that move was!
When we
came back they wouldn’t let us back in cause they got the order not to let anyone in until after the
sound check around 1pm or something as
the guy from when I arrived was back!
Alison and
Terri tried persuading him but he was very strict. The younger guy who spoke English
told us to try the other entrance, maybe they
would let us back in.
We didn’t
want to try at first cause it was really high up but we ended up trying it,
climbing through knee high snow next to a lift and the entrance was next to the
hill where the skiers came down.
And all for
nothing as they didnt let people in there either.
Back down
we chatted a bit with the young dude and he asked us where we are from after
hearing we only came just for the concert. When we told him from England, he
made the crazy sign and told us we are mad J .
I think we will
be in one of his “work related” tales
which he will rant to friends, hehe.
Finally
they let us in and I dunno why we would as it wasn’t many people, but we did
actually run UP the hill in this unsteady snow, of course I made a quick dive right in it.
No worries
on our spot, first row, center of the stage.
Security made us step back about 1,50m
and amazingly people were well behaved.
It still
was “only” 1pm....and our toes started to get numb.
We passed the time somehow and I think at
1.30 pm Husky Rescue from Finland came on.
Alison had
told us they were crap. They are a five piece band with a female singer.
The girl
reminded me so much of our help katja, sort of in the looks and how she moved
and mimicked.
I actually
liked their music very much, it’s rather mellow and instrumentally based,
singing is not all through the whole song. When she was singing I didn’t
understand any of it. Terri and Alison said it wasn’t making much sense and
especially Alison wasn’t happy with them at all. I loved her facial expressions,
they kept me amused.
I’d say I
liked their music, BUT it was totally wrong for this festival as it was
freezing cold and you couldnt dance to the music or jump or do anything. We
tried to move as much as we could, but that didnt involve our feet.
But
salvation was near !
T¦e¦x¦a¦s!!!!
They were
on time I think, but i didn’t have a clock on me!
2:30pm was
the plan.
By now the
crowd had gotten really big behind us, still everyone was well behaved and the
security guy infront of us was cooperative moving between Terri and me so we
both could see the stage, he was very nice.
We greeted
them really loudly, wooing and clapping.
The line up
was the usual:
Ally on the
left of the stage:
Tony on the
right side, Sharleen the Centre Stage of course with Johnny being between Tony
and Shar in the back
Neil was
sitting in the middle with his drums, he is surrounded by two keyboardists,
Eddie on the left side who you could hardly see as his keyboards were too high,
so sad really, you could only see his head and not really all of it!
And on the
other side was the new member Michael on keyboards!
So there is no Mark One, at least
not for the festival, and it seems times for Charlotte and Nicole are
definitely over too , which is sad, I’ll miss them !
They
started off with I Dont Want A Lover
and Ally’s marvellous slide guitar, such a dream!!
Finally
they were back!!
We were
happy dancing and moving along and singing loudly of course!!
Next on was
Halo and we started jumping like mad
- you just have to.
We noticed
quickly how unfit we were, I was so out of breath, but we continued of course
with occasional little breaks in between!
The sound
was great, everyone seemed to enjoy themselves, Micheal had big red ears, and
he looks like a kid, he and Neil really
look young compared to the others, like fresh from school!
And im not
saying the rest of the band looks old.
Up next was
Carnival Girl and it sounded so much
better with Ally and Tony’s guitars and without the rapping.
Sharleen’s
voice was as strong as ever J .
The crowd
gave quite a good cheer between songs and woooed and clapped alot to show their
gratitude for them being back playing for us.
And Texas
thanked us by playing us a new song :
GET AWAY.
Which has a
great rather rocky-ish sound to it, but again very different from Cwywf. We
loved it and it’s a jumpy song, so a good concert song for one and just
generally we were very smitten and won over by it, and we showed it in our
reaction i hope!!
Sadly I can’t
say anything more as the melody and the few lyrics I had slipped my mind. Which
has nothing to do with the song, just my loose memory!!!
But I cannot
wait until it’s released and we can play it over and over!
The next
songs were In Our Lifetime, When We Are Together and then she gave
Micheal a break and sat on his keyboard to give a wonderful performance of Tired Of Being Alone :)
Goosebumpy....
Followed by
the very exhausting Black Eyed Boy
as we couldn’t help ourselves but jump like mad again!
The crowd
was great, but at times we were the only ones jumping. So though we felt like
totally old and unfit, maybe we are not that bad :)
But even if
we were bad, that fact was sweetened by the second treat shar and the guys had
for us, as they were presenting another new song, yay!
It is
called CAN’T RESIST.
