Another successful Paléo for the organisers - promise of a party next year to celebrate 40 years of the festival.
Photos above and below from Sunday's Youssou N'Dour concert. At Sunday's final press conference of Paléo 2014, Daniel Rossellat, president of Paléo and Jacques Monnier, programming coordinator, summed up the previous five days of the festival and concluded that despite the weather, it had been a very successful event. Rossellat explained that there actually hadn't been that much rain at the festival itself, the problem lay with the volume of rain that had fallen in the preceding weeks which had made the ground wet to begin with. 350 tonnes of straw and 100 m3 of wood shavings were used at the festival this year to cover up the mud!
Cars parked across and around Nyon Rossellatpraised those in charge of transport who had to deal with all the parking issues (festival car parks were closed for the final two days), but then went on to say that he was always amazed that music lovers still made the effort to get up to the grounds, cars were parked across the whole of Nyon stretching for miles and he was pleased that that many took advantage of public transport.
Stromae a massive success Jacques Monnier said it was always difficult to summarise in 5 minutes all the concerts at the festival, but undoubtedly the concert of Stromae will go down in Paléo history, not only did it attract record numbers to the grounds, but the concert itself "was spectacular and something "out of the ordinary". Paléo is very pleased to have brought Stromae to Nyon and they say they are interested to see what happens to his career next as the artist aims to win over the American public.
Photo above - courtesy Paléo. Records crowds for Stromae As to the other Paléo 2014 concerts, some of the highlights were artists such as Seasick Steve, "he stripped everything down to the basics, just him and one other musician and he still produced a great sound", Parov Stelar "their concert went on until 0300 a.m and was a real hit", Plaza Francia in the Dome (read a previous Living in Nyon review of this concert here) and Akua Naru in Le Detour tent (read Jonas's review here). Although Monnier didn't quite say so outright, there seemed to have been some disappointment with the Elton John concert, and Living in Nyon agrees, although he was in fine voice, he didn't really engage with the audience. Monnier repeated there had been many other concerts that had been a success with the public, too many to mention. Paléo is always pleased to be able to showcase Swiss artists and this year there were many on the line-up. Music programmers from Glastonbury in the UK, to Roskilde festival in Denmark to other important world festivals come to Paléo in the hunt for new artists, so playing on a Paléo stage gives bands a great opportunity to promote their work.
Above - Swiss band - " The Silver Firs" from Berne Screens and Sounds There was some small discussion at the press conference on the fact that if one band is playing at Les Arches and another is playing at the Club Tent (or even on the main stage), then at times the music can clash and both bands can be heard at the same time. However Monnier said that this doesn't happen often, it was more to do with the wind direction that day and if it did occur, it was only for 15 minutes due to the careful scheduling. The alternative, he said, would be to eliminate one stage completely which they didn't want to do as it would limit the music choices on offer to the public. Nevertheless , they were always looking at how to improve the layout of the stages, but he said this clashing of sounds issue is not unique to Paléo, it can also be a problem at many other festivals. This year there were more screens placed around the grounds, particularly for the Stromae concert due to concerns about safety and to ensure all the public could watch the concert, so the question was raised by a member of the press if they should do this more often, however Paléo is slightly reluctant as they really want to attract the public to be near the stages as it lends to the atmosphere. The only slight negative to this year's Paléo was that drink sales were down by about 10%. Rossellat says this often happens in poor weather. The bars and restaurants at Paléo bring in approximately 20% of its revenue. Aside from that, is was concluded that it was a successful Paléo and there was much promised for next year which will be celebrate 40 years of the festival. There will probably some kind of party or celebration planned in the town itself and all will be revealed on the 14th April along with the line up. Tickets will go on sale on 22nd April and the festival itself will take place from 21 to 26 July 2015. The music from the Village du Monde area will be from the Far East. Living in Nyon will be there of course to report on it all including writer and student Jonas Parson (photo below) who covered the festival this year.
Below - other images of Paléo 2014
Above - Namaân - The young French reggae artist
Above - guitarist from Chico Trujillo
Above - The European Orchestra playing on Les Arches stage.
Above and below the famous massive "tartines" served at Paléo
Above - scene from the Yossou NDour concerr
Serving meat at the Argentinian asado in the Village du Monde area
Above - Focussing the heavy cameras onto the crowd