Sète, beyond the festival

Sète, a wonderful small town on the French Mediterranean offers more than just the breathtaking festival!  A fascinating port, charming canals, delicious seafood,....

Nikon D90: 

Yashica - Fujifilm 400asa:

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Sète and seafood in southern France

Report: Worldwide festival 2011 -France

The festival season is once again here.  Festi fever everywhere: California had Coachella, Barcelona had Primavera and Sonar ....  Last week, mister Gilles Peterson served  for the 6th time the WorldWide festival under the blazing Mediterranean sun of Sète (France). 

 

After last year I couldn't resist to buy a gold pass for 5 days of stunning music.  In less than 6 hours the high speed train brought us to the South of France.  An hour later we were already dancing on the beats of Prommer & Barck at the C.R.A.C. street party.  

At the most idyllic spot of this fishing town, the magical Théâtre de la Mer we enjoyed the hairy disco tunes of DJ Harvey and the amazing performance of James Blake.  Lucky there was a hot sea-breeze that brushed our goosebumps away.

The Pyramids

With sand between our not so bronzed toes we shaked in the afternoons on the ACD beach where Boiler Room vs. Young Turks, Quantic, Rainer Truby, Dam Funk and local Laurent Garnier made it even more tropical.  

The Phare du Mole lighthouse was the venue for some midnight music tale stories:

Konono 1 with their own individual sound

Raphael Saadiq with a not so likable show, but hey .. we are not complaining  

David Rodigan, a genius teacher in the old school dub step and reggae music

Cut Chemist, fo' sure he can scratch

Mount Kimbie, omg .. I'm blown away 

And the cream de la cream: Jamie xx, Joy Orbison, Flying Lotus live with Dorian Concept and Richard Spaven…  a musical mecca!!

And last but not least our own Belgian music guru Lefto aka the Belgian hip-hop-ambassador and Brownswood soldier.

Lefto

Benji B

Flying Lotus - Richard Spaven - Dorian Concept

Waauw, amazing festival, I think I'm going to move to uhm 'WorldWide'!

I don't think a film career will be on my resume, but here an attempt to make a video and more pictures:

  

  

Beachwatch

Do you know where you were a month ago?  I was relaxing by the lake of Biscarosse watching  beachwatch ..

A holiday in a slideshow

Ok, I made it!! I managed it to make a small selection out of more than 700 pictures of the road-trip. Here's the slideshow:

The apparition

In the middle of our trip, we saw a road sign: Lourdes 10 km ... Imagine, somewhere in the Pyrenees (near Lourdes), a car with the two blondes and myself the brunette, thinking about doing a little detour and driving to Lourdes.  For the not Lourdes-knower, it is a pilgrimages, because some lady saw Maria’s apparition in a cave a long long time ago.  Sorry granny if I’m telling this story wrong or not in a passionate way, but at least I’ve sent you a postcard!!  Anyway, we parked the car and followed the signs to the circus of Lourdes.  Loads of people did the same thing ... strange scene.. We saw the church, saw people filling 5, 10, 20 bottles of ‘holy’ water and heard them singing near the cave...  You probably agree if I prefer WorldWide Festival!?!  Is this a must see, well ... ‘no’ would be my first answer, as it is such an awkward place, but still somehow we were there....

Wild horses

Wild horses couldn't drag me away
wild wild we'll ride them someday

That was what the Rolling Stones were singing, but we did it!! Yes, we've been riding wild horses!! After visiting the Atlantic coast (the story will follow later and no chronology is not a part of my road-trip story!) we drove into the mountains, The Pyrenees.  In Laruns a small town in the Ossau valley we booked a 'promenade à cheval' somewhere higher in the mountains around a lake. Waauw the horses walked one hour along the lake and we were surrounded by these enormous huge rocks, called mountains... loved the scenery, just like a movie, starring two blondes and a brunette .. maybe a comedy..  Anyway, it's a must do if you're visiting the Pyrenees!

A week ago

It seems I can't manage to find some time for organising my travel pictures.  Which is a good thing .. this means summer is busy, pleasant busy!!  One week ago we were in the wonderful Sète for the Worldwide Festival.  I can hear you thinking..  again about that.. but hey..  look how beautiful it was!!

Worldwide festival: you say world .. I say wide

Besides Paris, there's another city of light in France!! Sète, a small idyllic fishing town in the South of France hosted Gilles Peterson his WorldWide Festival (8- 10 July 2010). 

After 12 days on the Frenchie roads we had some time left to witness the first two days of this amazing festival.

I had already a crush on the festival before it started by seeing the exceptional hot looking line-up and unique venues.

The kick off took place in the blazing sun on the street in front of the CRAC (Regional center of contemporary art). Koko and Gilles Peterson were spinning the first tunes and my feet started moving. Between some sunscreen sessions I saw some regular faces from Gent.

 A name on the line-up up I looked forward to see, was Dorian Concept.  Waaauw, this amazing Austrian produces raised the temperatures with his awesome beats!

A shower refreshed us and we were ready to go to the lighthouse Phare Du Mole/St Christ for the rest of the program of day 1.  At the entrance we saw the notification that Gil Scott-Heron, the highlight of day 1 cancelled for personal reasons. What the heck?? 

In the queue at the entrance we met with Ellen (also known as Lemon Lizzy with her fantastic blog) and her boyfriend and joined them to hear our own talented Belgian artist on stage: Lefto! Word! The band of Gil Scott-Heron didn't feel the personal reasons of the man himself and performed 45 minutes on stage. After this nice show and some dub-step tunes of MC Dynamite the Foreign Beggars took over the place and the crowd went totally crazy.  Floating points and Fatima were on the program as well, but I've seen them before and the girls got tired so we went back to the hotel.

Day 2 started on the ACD beach. While dipping myself into the Mediterranean Sea I enjoyed tracks like think twice from J.Dilla.  Lefto and Simbad controlled the turntables and people started dancing on the beach, what a work out!

Salty water and sandy sand were removed again after a shower and we took of to one of the nicest venues I've ever seen: Theatre de la mer.  On stage: the Havana Cultura Band with the female singer Danay Suárez Fernández. Again amazing!! She brought the wonderful track Lagrimas de Soledad and Think Twice.  These tracks are released on the Havana Cultura album on Brownswood records, a must buy!

Poly-Rhytmo de Cotonou brought some nice latino vibes and the crowd started the fiesta. The deafening applause reached the sky so hard that it replied at the end of the concert with a rain shower.  Damn festival, I like you.  As the most of the festival peeps went to the St. Christ venue again, we returned to the hotel,unfortunately.  The morning after we had to leave really early back to Belgium.  But next year, yes I'm already thinking of my agenda of next year, I'm back!!

Good music makes good people come together! Thank you WorldWide, thank you Gilles Peterson

Back from Frenchie - land!

The figures:

• 15 days cruising on the roads in France and a little bit Spain
• 10 places: Biscarosse / Biarritz / Saint-Jean-de-Luz / San Sebastian / Laruns / Lourdes / Seix / Toulouse / Carnon / Sète
• 3500 kilometres or more
• 776 digital pictures and a few analogue ones
• sunscreen SPF 30 + after sun 
• degrees: 24 - 25- 26 - 28 - 34 - 38 - 40
• food: salads - trout - salmon - tapas - calamari - oysters

More pictures will follow soon