Paleo Festival
Nyon, Switzerland - 24 July 2001
by Robert Potencz
I arrived at the site of the Paleo festival at about 3
in the afternoon. The weather was great, and
fortunately the forecast summer storm didn't
materialise...
Getting to the front row was easy this
time: I only had to wait at the gate for two hours,
then in front of the stage for another two before the
first concert. Good thing that I had a book with me...
But it was definitely worth it. On the festival's
website, the lineup on the big stage on the 24th was
described as a "Summit of british pop-rock" - with Ash
representing Northern Ireland, Pulp for England and
Texas for Scotland. They could have added Catatonia
from Wales to make the summit complete (and me
completely happy :). But you can't have everything...
The barrier was unusually close to the stage for a
festival, so from the front row we had a really good
view. We weren't searched for cameras at the entrance,
and taking pictures was allowed, but without flash.
Fortunately, I had an 800 film... We'll see how the
photos turn out :)
At 18:45, Ash started. They are a rock band where the
only female member is not the lead singer for a
change, but the guitarist/background
vocalist/keyboarder. They weren't bad at all, but
unfortunately the vocals could barely be heard (and
much less understood) because the guitars were much
too loud.
Then, another hour of waiting as the sun went down
behind the mountains. The tension was rising and so
was the number of people before the stage...
Shortly before 9 (with 15 minutes delay because the
sound engineer couldn't get his board set up the way
he liked it), Pulp stepped on the stage. I hadn't been
to a Pulp concert before, but I would definitely
recommend it to anyone. The show was different, but
almost as good as Texas. For 90 minutes, Jarvis Cocker
stumbled from one end of the stage to another, almost
hung himself up with the microphone cord and had a
wrestling match with a monitor speaker...
After what I had seen with Pulp, I expected Texas to
be even more delayed, but the roadies were very
efficient and at 23:15 we were finally ready for the
big moment of the evening: TEXAS !!!
The show kicked off with a slightly modified version
of IDWAL. Shar was wearing the yellow adidas top from
T in the park, but without the funny hat (it was much
too warm for it anyway...)
What followed was a just slightly shortened version of
the Greates Hits show. They played Black eyed boy,
Halo, Guitar song, Tired of being alone (With Shaggy's
"It wasn't me" in the middle), In our lifetime, In
Demand (acoustic version, with just a little help from
Eddie and some scratching from Mark One at the end),
When we are together, Summer Son, SWYW, then the
"usual" break during which Shar got into her leathers
and the Texas sign was hung up, and then Inner Smile
and Suspicious Minds. The only songs that were dropped
were Insane (along with the three neon-tube panels
that were lowered above the stage during this song on
the tour), Prayer for you and Put your arms around
me/So in love with you (replaced by In Demand). The
audience went absolutely crazy - after all, they
were mostly french :) - and it almost became
dangerous to some people at the front who had to be
pulled out by security...
The already traditional dancing contest was held
again, with three guys from the audience, one from
France, one from Switzerland and one from Italy(?).
Nicole did her best, even started to undress her
dancing partner, and got a lot of applause for her
efforts, but Sharleen won again (what a surprise :).
The light show was also a simplified version of the
one from the tour. The wall of neon lights at the
back, the transparent curtains in front of it and the
ever-popular red Texas sign were present and created a
great atmosphere. The only problem was the guy
operating the spotlight who refused to point it at
anyone but Sharleen, despite her cues ("And now, Mark
One! I said: MARK ONE!!! Oh, whatever...")
As always, the show was over much too quickly, and the
audience wanted another encore... This time Sharleen
didn't mention anything about the band taking a break.
At the end, she received a bunch of sunflowers from
the organisers.
To sum up, if Texas would come to Paleo again, I
wouldn't hesitate going again, despite the 8-hour
journey. The weather and the atmosphere were great,
the audience was enthousiastic, even a bit too much
so, Nyon is a beautiful small town (I took a quick
nocturnal tour while waiting for the train) and I got
to see one good and two excellent bands. Who would
want more?
-----------------------
Robert
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