Friday, June 27
Yesterday I hitched a ride into a large town with the Dutch
couple I’m camped next to and loaded up on supplies. The pantry in my tent is
fully stocked until Sunday. I never made it to the actual festival on Thursday
because it looked like it was going to rain and I kept getting distracted. The
festival includes five days of music and I figured I’d pay for two nights.
Otherwise, you can hear the music perfectly in the village right outside the
venue. The first night I could faintly see Pat Metheny perform thru the trees
but could hear everything perfectly.
I’ve been meeting all
kinds of people from all over the place. I met a woman in the campground from
Iran who is a classically trained violinist. We talked for quite a while about
Iran. She said in Iran she can only perform underground. As a woman she is very
limited as to how she can do her music. For example, a women singing is
strictly forbidden. She and her husband come to the festival and Europe every
year for a couple of months to try and make some money performing. She said
living in Iran was like living under water and being in Europe was like coming
up for air. So why stay in Iran? She says it’s her home and she still loves her
country. I asked her about all the accusations of Iran trying to build a
nuclear weapon. She said she really didn’t know anything about it and even if
Iran ever had one they would never use it. She says the current administration
is much better and stated that the country is really very safe but there
are many rules.
The music around the campground has been quite phenomenal
but last night was a lot livelier than Wednesday with the music going until
6am. I noticed some drunken guy yelling across the grounds at around 2 am. Remarkably,
I’m sleeping through most of it with the help of ear plugs.
Many of the guitar players appear to be Django Gypsy jazz
junkies. After a while the choo choo train rhythms and quick wispy leads can be
a bit much but it’s as if the players can’t get enough of it. Circles of jamming musicians
form all over the campground. While most groups are very informal there seems to be a certain etiquette
to playing with some of the more advanced musicians.
The campground still has plenty of room and from what I can
tell there’s never more than two employees, on site, for what must be the
busiest week of the year. The snack
stand appears to be getting the most attention but I did see someone cleaning
bathrooms this morning. People are just pulling in and setting up. The office
looks empty. No one is checking to see if anyone has paid.
Maybe France is a pay optional country. So far I’ve ridden
four trains and no one has checked my ticket. Anyone can walk on a train at any
station. I’ve only seen one person actually working on a train and he was
simply checking windows. There are no gates or anything requiring a ticket
before boarding. Train tickets are expensive in France. I think it’s set up so
the honest paying customers compensate for those who don’t pay.
Nonetheless, France is an absolutely beautiful country to
visit this time of year. Maybe the French spend the rest of the year getting
ready for summer then slack off until the fall.
Overall, The Django Jazz Festival was great. The location
and setting are beautiful. I paid to attend the actual festival on Friday and
Saturday night. On Friday I witnessed some outrageous guitar playing within the
gypsy jazz genre. Saturday was a mix of
Jazz styles with Snarky Puppy from Brooklyn putting up a great Jazz Rock Funk
Set. The internationally acclaimed Grammy award winning Gipsy Kings closed out
the evening. The downside to Saturday is that it rained all day and night.
Still, the crowds turned out.
Saturday morning I rode into Fontainebleau with a British
farmer and his son from Devon, England. They both play Gypsy Jazz guitar. With it being a
rainy morning I saw it as a good chance to get out the campground. We visited
the Chateau and I got a great laugh out of seeing an ornate
fountain with dogs pissing. We toured around the exterior, grounds, chapel, and
got some coffee.
Saturday afternoon I met a raspy voiced Louisiana Cajun
blues man in his late 30’s. He came across as very friendly but a little rough
around the edges. He said he was living in Romania and playing a nice gig at an
American themed restaurant. With good pay, a legitimate contract, and a very
low cost of living he was happy enough but explained how living there is weird.
He had arrived at the festival with his girlfriend but she couldn’t take the
camping thing so she left him for Paris. He couldn’t understand why she wouldn't like camping because she was a hippy. You could tell the situation with his lady friend was
buggin him so meeting another American from a neighboring state gave him a
chance to vent. In a rough straight talking uncouth sort of way he explained
his side of the story and seemed to work it out in his head as he spoke. Based
on what he said I told him I thought they each had different expectations. With
that, he dropped the subject and starting talking about music related topics. I
asked if he had his girlfriend’s festival pass. He said he did. I offered to
buy admission for Saturday off him at a discounted rate. He was happy to give it to me for
half price.
Needless to say there are many characters at the Django
Festival, however, at camp Petit Barbeau hardly any were actual gypsy's. The real
gypsy's have their own place somewhere else nearby for camping. There was one
obvious gypsy camp in Petit Barbeau. They seemed pretty comfortable and
well to do with a couple nice trailers and hosted a great group of musicians
but the circle felt little closed. Call it social conditioning or whatever but
I’m a little leery of gypsy’s in general.
I stayed all four nights at the campground without a
problem. I paid for one night and was going to pay for the other three,
however, a British group camped near me said they had pre-paid for two people
who did not show up and that I could count as one of them since they were not
going to get a refund.
I packed up my wet camp Sunday morning and had hoped to
hitch ride with someone form the festival to Lyon in route to the Alps. I
wasn’t having any luck so I asked a Belgian couple leaving the campground if
they would be willing to give me a ride to the train station. They were happy
to help.
It was a about a 45 minute train ride to Paris where I got the
opportunity to witness some fine French inefficiency at the Train station while
waiting nearly an hour to purchase an overpriced ticket to Lyon. In Lyon I more or
less dropped in on some friends I haven’t been in contact with for 3 years. I
sent a couple of emails beforehand and just kind of turned up. Luckily my
timing was good and it’s worked out well. I’m staying with my friend Frederic
who owns and runs a Yoga Studio. Stephanie, another friend, just happened to be
in town from the countryside and is staying at Fred’s studio. I met both of
them through the European Yoga festival four years ago.
Today I walked around Lyon and purchased my ticket for Les
Houches in the French Alps where I’ll meet up with my friend Debbie from the
England and we will hike a 100 mile route around Mt Blanc call the Tour Du Mont
Blanc. Hoping for Good Weather!
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