Friday 16/10

After having missed my train last year and having paid a fortune for a replacement ticket I went this year quite early to the station, got me a coffee and a newspaper and waited patiently for my direct train to Toulouse. I arrived towards 1PM and would have preferred to continue to Albi, but at the Albi main station you can’t leave your luggage and so I decided to spend a couple of hours in Toulouse. It was really hot and after a lunch I went down to the Garonne River, strolled through the beautiful center and then it was time to get the bus to Albi to get the festival shuttle bus. After ten minutes the bus got struck in a Friday afternoon traffic jam and I had a slight feeling of déjà vu… and Yes I missed the shuffle, the bus was about 90 minutes late and fortunately a friend picked me up in Carmaux with a car.

 

 

(While opening my camera I realized that the battery was down and I couldn’t take any photos on Friday, but there will be some photos especially on the website of Lutz Diehl:

http://www.progrockfoto.de/" rel="nofollow - http://www.progrockfoto.de/

 

Time for a beer, outside on a beautiful warm late summer night, lots of known faces and back for the ….early highlight of the Festival:

Univers Zero/Aranis/Present BigBand no use to present the music of the RIO house band(S), all bands had already played concerts plus the memorable Present, Univers Zero concert on the second edition, a fantastic concert, served by Udi Koomran's great sound mix, perfect line of tension building up slowly and culminating with an volcano like outbreak, followed by a standing ovation of the audience (a slightly minor point only the embarrassing Hendrix copy guitar solo towards the end)

Great start for the first day, but a big question mark appeared, how could the other two days get close to this?

Saturday 17/10

My two roommates were still sounding asleep when I got up. Btw if you should happen to sleep with Camembert bass player Pierre in one room be sure to wear earplugs…

Cloudy, but still warm enough to have breakfast outside. This is one of my favorite RIO moments, most musicians pop up at one moment or the other and there is a nice round of fans and musicians taking coffee and a sunbath and chatting about music and other topics….

I missed a bit the conference part of the previous festival editions.  It gave an extra flavour and an occasion to discuss music in a forum. So I just took a walk and had a lunch with fans I've already met the last years.

3PM

 Yugen, a great start for the second day with the long and beautiful Yugen concert, in a way the “only” real RIO band during the festival with a special mention for Paolo 'Ske's keyboard sounds He takes a lot of trouble to travel with heavy and delicate vintage keyboards like a Hammond and a Wurlitzer, but this pays sound wise in lengths seen that some bands played on keyboards with cheesy sounds.

Rainclouds started to appear but it was still quite warm and the sky was beautiful, time to buy the latest Altrock CD’s and back for....

5:30PM

Gargantua, I didn’t found the time to check out the samples on the festival site and this Polish band was one of my big discoveries this year. Led by front women, vocalist and violinist Tylda the band delivered a tight set with influences by King Crimson and Stravinsky among others. Great ensemble play and Tylda establishes a good contact with the audience, a highly enjoyable set.

 

 

 

Another beer and in the meantime the rain had arrived and cooled down a bit the atmosphere.

At 11h30 PM

The German Jazz Metalers from Panzerballett took the stage and delivered their high energy set. Either for musical reasons (the programme was extremely dense on Saturday) or fatigue, the audience was a bit reserved and IMO the band could have earned a slightly better reception, which could also be due to the fact that there was no real but no real progression or tension, all bands that played this day were all excellent in their own manner, but couldn’t produce a headliner effect.

Already raining and fresh, after a short walk outside I went back up to get a sweater.

As it was getting a bit nasty outside I really missed the morning conferences of the former festivals and was happy when the concerts started again.

First surprise, the lower part of the seats had been retracted, leaving the first half of the hall kind of naked , the idea was good, but the venue who has in fact nice proportions suddenly looked awkward with the second half of the seats now about ten meters above the floor.

2PM

The French duo Vialka (drums, guitar vocals) opened the day, an interesting blend of French Realistic singing in the style of Frehel, avant-garde music, NeoFolk (English sung)reminding at times Faun Fables. Very dynamic concert, but a thinned out audience, even more visible now with the chairs out and about a hundred gathering in front of the stage.

4PM Grumpf Quartet (actually a Trio) gets on stage, as they mentioned themselves they were more used to cellars and small stages and feeled a bit awkward on the big festival scene, but delivered nevertheless a good energetic math rock set with some good audience feedback.

 

 

6h30 PM

Time for a beer and back for my personal second highlight Finnish Spider and Snake killers Alamaailmann Vasarat. I had never heard of this great band mixing up eastern European influences with Baltic humor and then something special, dressed like last century undertakers and acting out like in some b/W silent movie they delivered a hell of a set with two cellos, saxophone, trombone keys and drums. Some audience members I discussed with found the stage show a bit childish. I for myself found it just a highly entertaining show with great music and musicianship and in terms of parallels my sister show to Sleepytime Gorilla Museum last Year....

 

 

 

 

7h30 PM ....and that's the end of the "official' Rock in Opposition festival, leaving a part of the festival goers a bit helpless. The sky had cleared up in the meantime and a beautiful late summer evening sky with appeared.

9 PM

 Time for the Arno concert, now Arno is a very popular Belgian singer (popular for his music and his drinking abilities) and has a status of an outsider in the French sung chanson world. He is definitely in opposition and could be compared to Tom Waits and Kevin Coyne, with music and lyrics that mix popular culture, blues and then some. The concert was also announced as a single concert in the surrounding towns and a part of the Arno audience wasn't even aware that he was the headliner of a three day festival.

Anyway, the audience had more than doubled and Arno delivered a good show, especially towards the end when he sung his greatest hits, hand waving and sing-along’s included, but it was still a bit strange for the last concert of a RIO festival.  After the concert the house lights went on and some soundboard CD started and for a second I thought… well this was the last RIO festival, no more announcements as in the last years….but fortunately the music stopped and Michel Besset, members from the Rocktime association and Aymeric Leroy came on stage and Michel Besset hold a speech, but contrary to the last years he didn’t announced a 5th edition, but expressed nevertheless his hope that a 5^th edition would take place ….  

 

After the Arno concert were only a few fans left and a nice crew member invited us backstage to join the big afterfestival party with musicians and crew members which lasted until the early morning.

After a short night an early start to catch the train to Toulouse where I spent a rainy afternoon with afterthoughts about the festival:

Nothing to say : musically as good as the first three festivals obviously depending on your personal taste.

 At one point during a lunch one fan asked the difference between the blue and orange arm bands and someone said in form of a joke the orange ones didn't pay, meaning orange ones were for journalists, photographers, guests, band and crew members etc. from which you saw this year  sometimes more than blue "normal" festival goers.

This had on the positive side the coziness of a family gathering with a lot of people knowing each other now from the first editions, but on the other side sometimes there was a general lack in enthusisam and for some concerts the audience was a bit too reserved, and IMO there was a bit of fresh blood missing…. 

The big question is obviously where to go from now on, Michel Besset & Roger Trigaux have tried different approaches in the previous 4 festivals,  which were all courageuos and interesting, even if not everything was to everybody’s taste. There is also a limit of presenting Present, Magma and Univers Zerto under different aspects.

Strangely what I missed the most from last year’s festival was the mood during the Gong concert on the Saturday night last year. It was neither a specially good nor bad concert, but the good mood on stage produced great audience feedback (BTW the venue was nearly full ) you had people dancing in front  of the stage and a good balance between young and older,  hardcore fans and people from the surroundings. On a festival night you want to have something special (like the Friday night Once Upon A Time In Belgium) and even so Sax Ruins and Panzerballet offered great concerts this year I would have preferred something more like the vibes during the Gong concert.

Anyway I hope, that this festival will last and looking forward to the 5the edition …

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wish I could have been there myself.

 

1- i'd say that if the crowd didn't respond properly to Panzerballet, it's probably their leader's fault....He should shut up more and play.... Plus the fact, that the seated crowd didn't really help... Maybe if they had fallen on the sunday with the seats folded and removed (this was a sine-qua-non from Arno

 

2- Last yar's happiness of Gong was more than replaced this year with the sheer happy lunacy of Alamaailman Vasarat, where the dancing was anything but uncommon (ao by yours truly).... anything but chilish, their show was simply astounding (as I expected them to be, although the only other time I'd seen them was in 2003 and the show was not yet refined like it was.

 

 

3- I can't actually be sure there will be a next RIO Fest, especially that there is a controversy between one band and the organization, the first nearing to difamation (claiming more were unhappy), the second saying that costs were unconsidered and documents not sent back in time.

 

4- an issue for the festival's survival seems indeed in order, given the amount of blue bracelet sold (paying attendees).... I found the paying festival crowd to be less numerous.... and that's of course somewhat vital for the financial equilibrium....  And the cancellation of Vander probably deprived the festival of the Magma crowds, even if the fee for his concert was saved

 

5- Of course, there is an artistic question that Martin mentions.... But there are plenty of other bands that can still appear...

 

6- Even if it comes probably cheap in terms of hall and sound equipment, the geographical location of the site does not help, because let's face it getting to Carmaux is a solid expedition, And unless you have car, you're kind of stuck on site.... or with the shuttle ... stuck in Albi. So the crowd have to take more or less four days at best including travel time.