After four days of lovely sunny and warm weather at Paléo, clouds began to appear on late Friday afternoon, there was thunder and lightning above the grounds and then a storm moved in. It began to rain and rain very heavily indeed. Festival goers in the Village du Monde area huddled under the canopies and any dry place they could find. Many gathered in the L’Escale tent where they were entertained with music by Luca Bassanese & La Piccola Orchestre Popolare. Their wacky, fun “pop-folk” fanfare cheered up the crowd while they waited for the rain to stop. See the final video at the end of this post.
Unfortunately, the storm continued for a while which then delayed the start of the first concert on the main stage. The rain had created technical difficulties so by the time U.S band “Nathaniel Rateliff and the Night Sweats” were able to play, they could only perform around 20 minutes of their set. Nevertheless, this didn’t stop some die-hard fans in the crowd dancing and making the most of what was left of the concert.
Eventually, the rain died down and although it had created a mudbath in places, the concerts continued. There was even a partial rainbow that appeared above Les Arches stage for “Havana Meets Kingston”, a fabulous Cuban/Jamaican world music mix. Their tropical sound warmed up the audience, rainjackets started to be peeled off and the dancing began.
Later on in the Detour Tent, French 21-year-old “Theo Lawrence and the Hearts” wowed a big crowd with his soul, blues and rock’n roll.
Photo above – Theo Lawrence and the Hearts. Below – Luca Bassanese & La Piccola Orchestre Popolare