Nyon is a little quieter now that the majority of the fans who came to the town for Paléo have gone home. The signs for the festival are being taken down around the town, so that’s it for another year.
2013’s Paléo will take place from the 23rd to the 28th July, and the music featured in the Village du Monde will come from the Indian Ocean part of the world.
This year’s highlights
This year’s Paléo, (as promised at the initial press conference), was indeed a “grand cru” of a festival with almost perfect weather conditions for the six days, apart a few hours rain on the Thursday night and slight windy conditions on the final night. There were many excellent concerts this year. For the Living in Nyon editor these were: Franz Ferdinand, Sting, Holly Cooke, a band from Fribourg called mmmh! and the Egyptian Project concert, (there was a great moment when the group left the stage to mingle with the audience whilst continuing to sing and dance!)
However, the main highlight for the editor was definitely the Caravan Palace concert. To get a glimpse of what this was like, scroll to near the end of this hour long video below (from around 55.45 minutes), despite the heat of that day you can see the energy and charisma behind the group and the crowd’s enthusiasm and appreciation.
Caravan Palace, Paléo Festival Nyon 2012… par paleo
For Jonas Parson who wrote for Living in Nyon during the festival, there were also many good concerts, in particular that of Rodrigo and Gabriela (see his post here).
Trish Thalman, (who has has previously written for this site during the Visions du Réel film festival), particularly liked the Lenny Kravitz’s concert – see her review below.
Lenny Kravitz
At midnight on Friday, the damp, cool weather at Paléo was instantly dismissed from everyone’s state-of-being, when the dynamic, hugely gifted, ‘hot’ Lenny Kravitz appeared on the Grand Scene with his formidable musicians, and immediately warmed up the shivering masses with the opening note from his guitar and the accompanying strobe lights. My ‘Inner Rock-Chick’ was rejuvenated at that moment of musical explosion that flourished into a ravishing concert for the next hour and 20 minutes. Lenny pulled out the stoppers and gave it his all, for which he is well known, being generous toward his audiences with his music and charisma. He looked good too: stylish and elegant, wearing his body-hugging, black leather jacket designed to emphasise his finely honed, upper arm muscles. The play-list included many of his great hits: old, new and classics. Sure, they played ‘Believe’. Lenny’s voice seems to improve with experience and age. At one point, he gave it over to his superb horn section, which regaled us with a taste of jazz-funk-rock style of music. It was noted that one of the premier bass guitarists in rock music, Gail Ann Dorsey, accompanied Lenny with her usual brilliant playing and sublime back-up vocals. There were some ‘take-a-break moments’ without music and lights on stage and at one point Lenny stopped to have a cup of tea, or similar-type liquid. OK. The penultimate tune was ‘Fly Away’ with the audience loudly joining the sing along. ‘Are You Gonna Go My Way’ (with one of the greatest opening riffs in funk rock music history) closed the show. No encores. The energy and performance of the star and his enduring music rocked the evening….and, he looked sooo good.
So a great year for Paléo and a thank you to all Living in Nyon readers who followed the festival via this site and who emailed the editor with your comments and own experience of the six day fest.
Lots more on the agenda
Despite the festival now coming to a close here in Nyon, there is a lot more to look forward in the town, there is always something going on, the Far arts festival begins soon and in the meantime, don’t forget the outdoor cinema is now open and has a full programme of films to last until the end of August many of these are in English. Just a few hundred metres from the lake and set against a backdrop of the back of the old town, it’s not a bad place to watch a film on a warm summer’s evening!