Le Franco Phoney

Musilac music festival was held last weekend in Aix-les-Bains, and the crowd had that lovely festival feeling.

The usual weirdness of a festival, such as this rubber chicken on a stick that was waved around near the front of the stages for most of the day, was present, along with a few other notable things. The view from anywhere was glorious, ranging from the lake and boats to jagged mountains and rolling green slopes. For a change, a music festival had some geographical ambiance — a nice change from the usual converted farming fields. I wasn’t expecting fireworks between the acts, nor the crowd’s reaction, as if it were the first time they’d seen fireworks. The applause after the fireworks was longer than for half the acts on the day! The acts, although limited in number, were generally fantastic, and yet the French influence endured through the night, with a guy called Philippe Katerine taking to the stage after Eels, PJ Harvey and Chemical Brothers.

A photo just wouldn’t justify the weirdness. He appeared in a Tudor-style dress and said in French: “I am the queen of England. F**k you!”

After a few dodgy numbers, he stripped down to miniskirt with bi-colour tights and sung along with his four female backing ‘vocalists’ known as “les Katrinettes” — a parody of an old famous French singer (Claude François, who I’ll talk about another time) who had backing singers called the “Claudinettes”. Bouncing boobs a requirement, they danced around and sang to songs including one entitled “Let me eat my banana”.
During that particular song, everything smelt of bananas. No, it wasn’t an artificial banana smell that filled the air: it was the real bananas being hurled towards the stage that were numerous enough to stink out the whole area. The singer stood on stage after the song, arms wide apart, inviting people to hit him with bananas. So many people had brought bananas with them! The (French part of the) crowd loved it.

If you’d like to see more photos from Musilac, Madamoiselle Caroline has plenty.

This year’s Fête des Lumières in Lyon was full of cool stuff and some disappointments too.

Held for just four days a year — and often with bitterly cold temperatures (it was about 2°C when I was there on Friday night), the streets on Lyon’s central island are closed to cars due to the huge influx of freezing pedestrians. I wrote about it here last year.

The giant Ferris wheel looked magnificent, but advertisements for new movies kept appearing when I was hoping to see something a bit less commercial.

And I wish I’d taken a photo of the ‘giant squid’ which was actually just a whole lot of cloth hanging from above that didn’t look a lot like a squid. It’s disappointing because the guide has this fantastic photo of an amazing squid, but that’s obviously just the artist’s impression before it was made. Many other illuminations suffered the same fate or weren’t working despite the darkness.

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However, the statues holding the fish was great! Pictured to the left, the four statues each had a fishing rod added, and tiny fish and ducks in bowls were dotted around (there are a few in the bottom right corner of my photo).

The fountain itself was dry, with lights and material added to simulate the flowing water. Although the photo can’t capture the flow, you can see the lights leading down from behind the statue. They impersonated water better than I imagined possible. The detail of the fishbowls impressed me further as they were a lovely touch to a great illumination.

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Up and down one of the main shopping streets were these great giant desk lamps which changed colour regularly.

They sat in the middle of round seats, but being an infrequent visitor to Lyon, I don’t remember if these seats are always here and that the creators came up with a great idea of how to fill the centres or if the seats are part of the creation.

You might also see some other lights in the street: these were illuminated cranes. They were still birds. I would have enjoyed them more if they moved just a little bit.

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This is an actual building, illuminated to appear skewed (if you look closely at the windows, you can see the illumination is weakened).

Members of the public were able to control how skewed the building looked by singing into a microphone. Different pitches caused the building to sway in different directions. This was possibly the most impressive illumination I saw due entirely to the interactivity.

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Last year’s flowers on the steps towards the Croix Rousse end of town were replaced by moving space invaders.

They started high and came down row by row, just like the game, then started all over again. They moved both horizontally and vertically through illumination of different rows and columns at different times. Very amusing.

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The place I stayed the longest didn’t involve any animation at all: it was a brass band of around twenty people who played everything from Blondie to Muse, and each member did a little spin when they played a Daft Punk medley that included ‘Around the World’.

It’s impossible to capture their spirit properly in a photo, but here’s one of the musician’s face reflecting in her own instrument.

Their clothes and movements were as quirky as their choice of songs. I don’t know who they were but they were a fantastically entertaining band to watch play. Bring on 2011.

August is the month of things happening in Annecy. This weekend signals the annual Fete du lac which I wrote about a few years ago, and barely a day goes by when there’s not some sort of activity going on. However, July 2010 was also fun-packed. I accidentally stumbled on this band playing on a canal just before August kicked in. Yes, I stumbled on a band playing on a canal. It was part of some four-day festival I had no idea about which involved wandering minstrels, some bizarre karaoke action, and this band playing on a canal.

They weren’t the best band in the world, but how could they be when they have to concentrate on standing still to prevent the whole floaty thing from tilting, possibly causing seasickness, as well as playing their instruments and singing. In fact, I’d say they were quite impressive because they kept a large crowd of people entertained amongst all this. Actually, were they entertained or bemused by the site of these three guys struggling to stay upright and perform at the same time? That, I’ll never know.

Each year, La Clusaz hosts a moonlit walk through town (la balade au clair du lune in French) when the moon is full and bright in the sky. All the street lights are turned off, but the town is still lit by more than the moon. Candles flicker on the ground, in trees, and on window sills along the main streets which are blocked to cars and full of pedestrians and entertainers.

This year’s theme was light. I guess it would be a bit boring without any additional lighting to view the entertainment by, so the entertainment itself was illuminated. Pictured above is one of the acts that got friendly with the tourists. I love the smile on the drummer’s face as he tries to get a member of the public dancing. Their light came from the giant illuminated cones around them. This was the extremely upbeat band compared with the one I’d seen marching down the street ten minutes earlier: they sounded like a funeral procession from New Orleans.

Meanwhile, pictured on the right are two illuminated angel people on stilts, along with a juggler and a non-stilted illuminated angel person to keep them company. They were really magical to watch as they floated and wobbled carefully along the roads, sometimes backwards. The juggler had green illuminated pins which was probably a good thing, or nobody would have noticed him juggling. All the kids were fixated on the white lights.

The kids were also fixated on the big screen that took temporary silhouette photos of anyone standing in front of it. My friends and I tried to get in there to do YMCA with our arms, but the kids kept us back. When I finally muscled my way to the screen, strangers joined me before my friends could (reluctantly) make it, so I did a C by myself while the kids around me smiled as part of their poses, which was as pointless as my C without the Y, M and A since silhouettes don’t show smiles.

The giant inflatable angel, pictured, floated silently over people’s heads through town. It risked being popped as the two blokes driving it tried to get it under an arch of decorative street lights (unlit) and got it wedged between the arch and a neighbouring street light (turned off as well — no wonder they ran into it). Moments earlier, it had been floating up and down ‘watching’ a two-piece band playing something folky. By the time it made it under the street lights, everybody watching the band had turned their attention to the floating angel, breaking out in applause, mid-song, when the angel made it under the lights without popping. The band seemed less than impressed and I reckon they would have popped the inflatable angel with one of their instruments had it been close enough to try.

Oops! One of the cows falls over backwards!

Human-shaped fireworks burn while the parade of weird objects continues.

Now it's the elevated cow's turn to burn, with band looking on

Statue-still people from the parade now standing on the roof too, including one with a disturbingly pointy hat.

Despite the ongoing warm weather, the summer season in the Alps has come to an end, coinciding, not coincidentally, with school holidays. Le Grand Bornand likes to end the season with a fête. Of course, I went. Surprisingly, the crowds were bigger than for le Tour de France, and parents were made to park their baby buggies in a special baby buggy area before continuing to the heart of the entertainment, holding their babies. Seats were not allowed. Just after none o’clock, when darkness had fallen, the streetlamps were turned off, everyone was told to stand, and the fun began.

It started off well enough, with these two giant inflatable cows lobbing themselves towards each other, forcing the crowd to part (this is why chairs and baby buggies were not allowed). After a few cow tips, they met, hugged (or wrestled?) and then the fireworks started. In the foreground, I noticed the live band standing on top of build, beating their drums to some Spanish tune. I wondered if any of the other countries I’ve lived in would allow a band to stand near the edge of a tall building with no apparent safety equipment. I love this country!

The inflatable cows disappeared and these strange shapes on sticks started parading through the crowd, choosing their own path. This involved small fireworks on the way through, and once again, I found myself wondering if this would happen elsewhere. Fireworks in the shape of people were lit against a wall, and the band played on. What did all this mean? What were the strange parading objects meant to represent? As the odd parade banged, burst and snaked through the crowd, one of my friends, who had seen last year’s end of summer fête said to me: “It’s nowhere near as random as last year.” I’d really like to know how it could be any more random than it was.

The shed behind me suddenly made a noise. Actually, there were fireworks on its roof. I was right under these great, low-exploding fireworks that really made me feel like I was engulfed by sparks on every side. It was magnificent! All concerns of randomness went while the fireworks continued for much longer than anyone expected.

The grand finale was even better. At first, I thought something had gone wrong. One of the fireworks on top of the shed didn’t seem to go off, but it seemed to ignite a neighbouring firework which then flew directly toward the band. I envisioned the band catching fire if they didn’t run away quickly. However, all fears were allayed when the firework actually flew directly behind the band, and right onto the giant Catherine wheels which had been set up behind them. Bang, bang, bang: off they go, and nobody needs to sue France for death, burning or falling from buildings. The band continued and the guys who had been traipsing around in the parade were now human statues in front of the Catherine wheels. Look closely and you’ll see one with a white, pointy hat. How on earth did they get away with that?

When the fireworks stopped, a few formalities were made (eg, pre-recording of cute-sounding kid thanking everyone for coming), the street lights were turned on again, and parents were virtually running back to the baby buggy park to put their dead-weight, sleeping kids back into their baby buggies.

So, that’s summer officially over. Unofficially, it’s boiling hot and lake is calling.

This weekend marked the annual Fete de la Musique — a national day of music in France. I headed down to Annecy with my camera, ready to snap some of the lovely ambiance that’s so much easier to describe with pictures than of words. Alas, my camera battery had run out because I had been taking photos of the moon the night before (pictured – spooky!).

So, here’s a description in words instead. Annecy was packed with locals, tourists, and even a few hens’ nights (complete with sparkly hats/bunnies ears/t-shirts with names on them), and as the sun went down, the party atmosphere increased. There were 22 stages and some wandering minstrels. It was a hot night. I think the ice cream shops were busier than the pubs. My friend and I watched Spanish flamenco dancers dance to a band that really didn’t sound Spanish to me. We saw a teenage group that consisted of:

• a singer/guitarist who had the facial blankness of Marilyn Manson, the hairstyle of Russell Brand and a fair bit of talent on lead guitar and vocals;
• a girl bassist with an amazing voice and no specific ‘look’ apart from slightly nerdy in a bad way;
• a guitarist who wanted to be in a metal band but was not; and,
• the singer’s dad on keyboards — their drum machine.

Despite not having a real drummer and being forced to play music from the dad’s teenage years (‘Stairway to Heaven’ era, apparently), they sounded professional. In fact, they sounded better than the metal band we saw on another stage.  They were alright, but the singer wanted to sing death metal while the others wanted to play hair metal. Not all was lost: four little girls — all under 10 years old — were standing at the side of the stage like groupies, watching the rather cute singer, and two of the girls had a go at headbanging. It was glorious! In fact, they seemed better at headbanging than one of the band members, who recovered his coolness by taking off his t-shirt to appease screaming teenagers in the mosh pit. The fact that a mosh pit was happening in the centre of Annecy was pretty surprising in itself, but hearing girls scream at the sight of a six-pack-hiding-underneath-the-layer-of-flab chest just topped it off.