went to the montreux jazz festival this wknd, a 2 wk long party on the other side of the lake (about an hour away). my boss had to go to bangladesh and wasn't able to use her tix for the sold out Black Eyed Peas show so i offered to take them off her hands. not the biggest BEP fan, but it gave me one more thing to do while i was there.
saturday, 4:00pm - after missing the train i meant to take and consoling myself with a chocolate crossiant, i finally got on board. as i've mentioned before, dogs go everywhere w/their owners here. shops, grocery stores, and even on trains. you can't even take your bike on board w/o a reservation, but fido can come. look at the cute puppy that rode next to me!5:15pm - arrived in montreux with about an hour to do the touristy thing before i had to return to the station to meet my friend jackie (pic on previous post), who was coming from a hiking excursion in zermatt and taking the other ticket.
people say montreux is the swiss riveria, and i can now confirm that. it's a small town situated on the lake, complete with hills,
mountains (these are the french alps),
and even palm trees! (which is totally bizarre, yet somewhat entertaining at the same time...)
eventually even found Le Château de Chillon, one of the most well known castles in europe. you can walk thru the entire thing, including the dungeon downstairs.
besides the gorgeous views and the festival, montreux is also known as Freddie Mercury's 2nd home. he came here w/Queen back in the day to record at Mountain Studios, and they luved it so much they ended up buying the place. you can find Freddie in the Place du Marche or come here at the beginning of sept when they have a 2-day festival honoring his 60th birthday.6:30pm - headed back to the train station to meet my friend jackie. we proceeded to wander the fest grounds, which is one big party on the lake that runs til 5am everyday. 5AM! this ended up being quite helpful (we'll get to that later).
the festival has stuff everywhere! tents selling food, junk, booze, and more junk. they also have 2 outdoor stages w/free shows all day. have no idea who this band is, but had to take their picture cuz it's the first time i've seen one of the horn things old swiss people blow on in ricola commercials...
besides free music and huge concerts, you can also take a festival boat tour. these things sell out SO FAST. you, along w/a pile of other folks, hop on a boat and get 3 hrs of your own shows while touring the lake. it's one big booze cruise.
and after the boat comes back, people have the option of 2 exits: the long way or the short cut.eventually we got to the main festival building which houses stravinski auditorium and miles davis hall, the 2 main venues for major concerts. ours was in stravinski, which was an uber nice place on the 5th floor, but standing room only. next door at the same time was atmosphere (yeah mpls!) and gnarls barkley.
8:30pm - the opener for our show was marcelo d2 from brazil. even tho i've never heard of them, i was totally expecting happy brazilian music like what's been playing the last few wks during the world cup. i was wrong. they broke out into brazilian hip-hop, and i busted out laughing. was not expecting angry rap music from such happy people! talk about bizarre! they were ok, tho no one in the auditorium knew who they were except for this one dude standing in the front frantically waving a kiddie-tee w/the brazil flag on it. they put him on one of the large screen TVs and you could tell right away he was a HUGE fan. he knew every word to every song. but why he had a kid's t-shirt and where the half-naked 5 yr old was that he ripped it off from are still a mystery...
9:30pm - after an hour, BEP started and put on a really good show. kinda surprised me, tho that may also be from going into it w/low expectations... it was non-stop madness for almost 3 hrs. fergie even impressed everyone by doing 1-handed cartwheels across the stage while singing. in tune. twice. and apparently she's like 3 or 4 mos pregnant??? the place was packed, so by the time the show was over i was hot, sweaty, and smelling uber PRETTY...11:50pm - after the show and surviving the exiting crowd, we went upstairs one floor to meet a couple of jackie's friends. one of them, gregory, happens to know montreux really well. he used to work at the tourist office and was a manager for the convention-center-type building we were in. he's also the one who told me this montreux jazz festival fun fact:
apparently it use to take place at the casino located on the other side of the festival grounds, but one year a Frank Zappa fan (remember "Don't Eat the Yellow Snow"???) burned the place down when he shot off a flare gun. idiot!
inspired by said idiot, Deep Purple wrote "Smoke on the Water" and put montreux on the map:
We all came out to Montreux on the Lake Geneva shoreline
To make records with a mobile - We didn't have much time
Frank Zappa & the Mothers were at the best place around
But some stupid with a flare gun burned the place to the ground
Smoke on the water, fire in the sky
sunday, 12:15am - in the midst of conversation, we realized what time it was. montreux has overnight trains that run special for the jazz festival, and we had just missed the midnight train. that meant the next one we could take would be at 2:45am, which seemed ok til we realized that by the time we got back to geneva, we would have to walk home from the station cuz nothing is available at 4am. SO...since festivities in montreux run til 5am, we decided to camp out and wait for the next train at 4:15am. i know! 4:15am! and that was still 4 hrs away! we really didn't have much choice tho cuz every hotel in this tiny town was sold out. luckily, the upstairs area we were in was uber quiet and had huge rectangular bean bags to lay on. and it was so nice to be off my feet! in my big rush to get out the door, i forgot to change shoes so i had spent the entire time in montreux running around in sandals w/big heels. boooo... jackie's friends decided to get some food, so we said good-bye and relaxed for a bit.
1:00am - got booted from our humble abode cuz they wanted to close the floor. with nowhere else to go for 3 hrs, we jumped back into the party. got a couple of beers and found a table in front of one of the open stages. it was here that we spotted the most bizarre lady sitting under a tree on a little hill in front of us. didn't think much of her at first, but she caught my eye when she laid down, put her feet on the tree, and proceeded to rock back and forth side to side. and when i pointed her out to jackie, she proceeded to roll down the hill towards us. this 50+ yr old woman had obviously been smoking something cuz as she rolled, her tunic top rolled up her body and over her head. she ended up at our feet, literally, and just laid there in her bra and shorts w/her shirt covering her face while jackie and i debated whether or not it was kosher to take a picture of the crazy lady (hee-hee!). before we could tho, she sat up laughing hysterically and started talking to us. SCARY! actually, she mostly talked to jackie cuz i had my head turned away trying not to laugh in her face! i didn't understand a word she said for the first 10 mins cuz it took her that long to finally put her shirt back on. once she was clothed again, all i understood from her babblings was something about misplaced shoes and wanting a ride in our car that we didn't have. after another 15 mins and a note on kissing oak trees to find our centers, she FINALLY left. THANK GOD! it was also at this point that jackie and i decided we needed another round...
2:30am - we were making pretty good progress. only another hour and a half on our tired legs, and then we could go home. jackie and i proceeded to walk around again, looking for some grub. it was amazing how much was still going on at that hour! the photo's dark, but trust me, there were still tons of people out. eventually we found some ice cream (luv movenpick!) and sat on some rocks along the lake.3:40am - proceeded to make our way back to the station. we were halfway there when jackie realized he couldn't find his cell phone. CRAP! we turned around and retraced out steps back towards the festival, but didn't see anything. then we stopped back at the lake to dig thru the huge rocks we were sitting on, but again, nothing. then jackie realized that it probably fell out of his pocket while we sitting on the bean bags. by the time we found a way back into the locked building, security wouldn't let us go upstairs. they said we had to come back and check w/lost & found in the morning. CRAP AGAIN! neither one of us were planning to come back, but couldn't argue anymore cuz we had a train to catch.
4:10am - finally got back to the train station. jackie had to buy a ticket from one of the machines, and just as we were about to run in, his friend gregory ran up. he handed us jackie's cell phone and a police officer's phone number, and told jackie to call the guy in the morning. totally bizarre! as we proceeded to tell him our cell phone search saga, he reminded us that our train had arrived. so jackie and i ran upstairs (actually i was gimping at this point cuz of the growing blister on my foot) only to realize we ran to the wrong platform and watched our train go by. that sucked!
4:20am - having nothing better to do while we waited for the next train at 5:15am, we decided to find some water. unfortunately at that hour in small-town-switzerland that meant going all the way back to the festival. by the time we got there there, stands were shutting down and you couldn't buy anything. after sharing a few choice words and feeling defeated, we walked back (i limped) to the station and pondered how his friend greg ended up w/the missing cell phone and what the story was w/the officer's number.
4:50am - got back to the station and found a tiny convenience store (about the size of a closet) open on the platform. it was like the clouds had parted and angels were singing! this place had water, sodas, and chocolate-filled crossiants. the sad part was the sun was coming up and this place apparently opens for the early morning commute...
5:15am - boarded train
6:20am - arrived back in geneva. gimped off train and downstairs to the street. since regular public transport had already started running for the day, i said good-bye to jackie and walked to my bus stop.
6:30am - sat down on a bench at the bus stop to examine my blister. it's about the size of a nickel.
6:40am - bus arrived.
7:00am - got home, showered, and went to bed.
i wasn't a total bum on sunday. woke up around noon, made some coffee, and eventually got out the door. had to be productive so i took my laptop to one of the parks to work outside and call my parents. later on i got a note from jackie explaining the cell phone mystery: his friend greg had found someone famous and wanted us to come see so he called jackie's cell phone, but some girl picked up. greg figured we didn't have a clue that it was missing and knew we weren't planning on coming back so he went to the lost & found to try and retrieve it. after many attempts he finally convinced the officer on duty to give him the phone w/the condition that jackie called the officer to verify that he got it back.
drama over. going back to bed now.
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