Paleo Festival
Nyon, Switzerland - 24 July 2001

by Kathy & Bea

Thunder and Lightning


This is our review of the Texas gig at the Paleo festival in Switzerland. You’ll see that it’s more a description of how we experienced those days than an actual review of the concert itself. Maybe some of you will be disappointed, we just didn’t want to repeat what the others had already written!

Monday
It is just 6 o’clock in the morning as we get up for our next Texas adventure! We are really excited about it ... it seems ages since we last saw them in Paris. We are both still very tired as we didn’t get much sleep that night. Heavy rainfall, thunder and lightning kept us awake! It had really been bad, there was no electricity in the house that morning.

At 8.30am we set off to Brussels at last. It seems the weather decided to follow us on our way. We had to drive carefully. Didn’t want to cut our Texas trip short!

6.30pm when we for the first time spot the Geneva Lake. A spectacular view as there is lightning over the mountains. We can see the festival and campsite from the top. Very keen to get there. When we finally arrive at the campsite, some of the cars already seem to be having problems getting stuck in the mud. As we are driving a rental car that scares us a bit but we go for it anyway. Always a lot of “strong men” around to get us “desperate girls”out of trouble we think by ourselves.

8pm we just managed to pitch our tent (which took us a bit longer as it has been more than a year since we used it), as it starts raining. How about that for timing? When we start exploring the campsite, it seems like a 1 star hotel. Lots of eating and drinking facilities, cold and hot showers and a little stage to warm us up for the bigger work later. There’s a very cozy athmosphere. People start building campfires, others play music, it doesn’t take us long to get in the right mood after that long drive from Belgium to Switzerland. We have a nice night-cap and head back to our tent for an early night. We are so tired and tomorrow will be a very long and exciting day!!!

Tuesday
8am we wake up after a very noisy night. The music of djembes at night created a very warm athmosphere, but when they keep you awake till 6 o’clock in the morning it’s more like a instrument of torture. Very soon we forget about the tiredness, as it comes to our minds again what a special day this is going to be!!! Very hot day though, the sun is already shining, we need to get out of our tent as soon as possible before it turns into a boiling sauna.

10am After we managed to have a nice hot shower and a lovely breakfast, we pack the stuff one needs to get through a Texas day. As the doors only open at 5.30pm we had planned to make a lovely drive around the lake, but as we had seen the difficulties some cars had manouvering in the field yesterday, we didn’t dare to.
So we spend our day counting down the hours and wandering along the many stalls of foods, drinks, clothes and lots of other interesting merchandise...buying stuff we really don’t need and drinking and eating far to much! (only softdrinks though!).

Around about 3 pm we make our way to the entrance gates. About 8 gates to choose from, where did we see that before??!! Finding the right one to enter doesn’t seem to difficult as the security team already were there. Still a long way to go so we make ourselves comfortable. Nothing else to do then peoplewatching, which is great cause at festivals you can see and meet so many interesting people.

5.20pm temperature is rising, not long to go!

5.30pm the gates open and we start running to the main stage. The heat seems to have made our legs slow, but...very soon we realise that we are making total fools of ourselves as no one else seems to be in a hurry to make it to the stage. So we decide to take it easy and just go along with the flow. It’s obvious that most people come to enjoy the wonderful athmosphere at the festivalsite.

6.45pm Ash is on. We won’t comment too much on them. Their music is not really our cup of tea and we are not bothered. Unlike the group of american teenagers who seem to be having the time of their lives. We could hardly hear them anyway cause of the bad soundsystem.

7.45pm Ash has left stage and I (Kathy) intend to taste the athmosphere at the festival site, as Pulp will only be on at about 8.45 pm that seemed like a very good idea. As I am wandering around I bump into Ally, Tony and Marc. I follow my instincts and sit down next to Ally. I tell him how surprised I am to catch them there, but he assures me that no one recognised them so far. This is my chance to ask him about the tourbook, to find out if they received it from GR management yet. He tells me that Sharleen and Johnny have already seen it and that they loved it. Ally himself is very curious about it and will read it as soon as he gets back to Glasgow. I feel very brave tonight and even ask him about the rumours of a possible Texas split. Only good news ... not a split, just a break. They even recorded half a new album already and might even be back in the studio recording really soon! That was such a relief!

9pm After a little delay Pulp make their entree on stage. This sure is going to be fun to watch, Jarvis Cocker, barefoot on stage, making funny movements and putting up funny faces. Don’t know most of his songs, but we like them! Beauty of nature seems the most important message in his songs. Too bad the soundsystem is still spoiling the fun. Jarvis even tries to throw one of the boxes of the stage! He is a real character! Wouldn’t want to get on the wrong side of him!

10.15pm Pulp were very entertaining. But, we have to admit, this is the moment we have both been waiting for, together with loads of other familiar “Texasfaces”, that seem to have gathered in front of the stage. This all makes the long drive worthwile!

11.15pm Ohhhhhh how it feels good to be back, the sensation the very first seconds as they come on stage, it’s so unbelievable. Not a single part of our body stays untouched...goose pimpels run down our spines! Sharleen seems to be in a very good mood, the crowd is very enthousiastic, so from the very beginning everything is present to make this a great concert! Apart from getting pushed against the fences very hard, as it had become very crowded in front of the stage. At a certain moment things become so hectic, that security even had to “rescue” some people from the crowd, which is for us totally unknown and unheard of at a Texas gig!
We are totally surprised that I even get pushed to the ground all of a sudden. Unbelievable!!! At some point Sharleen even asks the crowd to calm down a bit and to move 2 steps back if possible, as some people in the front are getting crushed. Shows you how much Sharleen cares about her fans no?
Too soon Sharleen changed into her Elvis-suit again and thanked the crowd for having them. Thanking us? We would have Texas anytime and anywhere we think by ourselves!
Satisfied for having whitnessed another wonderfull concert we make our way back to our tent. Accompanied by the usual djembe music we dreamed about the next stage of our Texas adventure. V2001 here we come!

Kathy and Bea

PS. We really would like to thank Sharleen for stopping the concert when things got a bit “rough” in front of the stage. We have experienced pushing like this before at other festivals but never ever a band stopped the music to try and prevent people getting hurt!!! THANK YOU!


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