We unfortunately have to leave the cocoon of Alençon and make our way to Evreux for the Rock Dans Tous Ses Etats festival (I don’t care if you’re French or not, that’s a mouthful). Just as well roll into town, we pick up our booking agent Shane at the train terminal. We’re conducting a small exploratory test to find out if it’ possible to squish six people into our Renault for the 12 hour drive to Slovakia that’s coming up soon (for everyone’s sanity we end up ruling against it).
So we show up on a huge field in Evreux dotted with tents and little stands to buy unnecessary wares. Much to my amusement, Brother Ali is performing. I know the world is a small place, but I didn’t expect to see another Minnesotan involved with these festivals on this trip. I don’t know why, I just didn’t. After he performs, we joke a little bit about how it’s frustrating that we persevered through the entireness of Minnesota’s bitter winter, and then we don’t get to enjoy the usual reward that is the Twin Cities’ amazing late spring and blistering summer. Instead we have to come over to cold, rainy Europe (it’s actually beautiful out at that exact moment, but the moist trial of Munich is still fresh in my mind). Poor us.
BBE plays on a stage sponsored by some ubiquitous sponsor. All those logos with block letters in muted fluorescents on top of toilet swirls all start to look the same to me. For some reason, the stage is enclosed within a fun little cage, as if there might be an Ultimate Fighting match held later in the evening. It turns out to make a lot of sense, packing people into the space that sounds the best, instead of letting them sprawl all over the place the way you normally can at a festival. A sick part of me wants to let a tiger loose in there and see what happens though. After BBE is done with their set, or course.
Right after BBE, I got to watch part of the flummoxingly strange excitement that is Babyshambles. It’s been a murmured question all day, found in every corner, and snaking it’s way though the crowd “Is Pete going to show? Will Babyshambles play or just get in a fight” (maybe that’s what the cage stage is for). The crowd swells in front of the stage, and at the appointed time, the show begins. Just like it should. I remember seeing Cat Power years ago, and as she started to have one of her panic attacks on stage, I remember wondering if I would feel shorted if she DIDN’T have an episode. The same type of question runs thought my mind as I watch Pete strut around the stage. I’m glad things go according to the script. A meltdown seems like it’d have to be contrived at this point.
Right after their set, I left for the production office under the guise of collecting our fee, but I just wanted to see if there were any good tales of the fears and potential lunacy/disaster of booking Babyshambles as a headliner. The stories were flaccid compared to the obvious relief on everyone’s face that Babyshambles actually 1) made it on site and 2) performed a whole set without someone walking off stage. No matter what I thought of the band, I’ll say this- BS were the only performer with a smiley face next to their logistics schedule posted to the office wall.
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