Day 2, Wednesday July 20

This day was a bit too metal for my tastes, so I decided to privilege folk music. The Celtic Village du Monde is welcoming and the music is great, so I spent most of my time there in order to discover new bands and deepen myself into Celtic culture and music.

Happy Ol’Mc. Weasel , Le Dôme, 5:15pm-6:30pm

The Slovenian band has nothing to envy the Celtic bands, the music these guys play seems to come out from an Irish pub. The style of Happy Ol’Mc. Weasel resembles that of Dropkick Murphys, blending Irish folk melodies with a good dose of punk and fast beats.

The audience appreciates a lot, forming mosh pits up front and jumping around. The singer is very entertaining involving the public, throwing a lot of full beer cans on them and sending a handful of happiness through music.

Red Hot Chilli Pipers, Le Dôme, 7:15pm-8:30pm

Some people still mistake the name of the band for the US band Red Hot Chili Peppers, not quite the same, sorry. But the Scottish band could easily well play a Red Hot Chili Peppers’ cover with bagpipes! Their speciality is in effect playing instrumental covers in a folk key and adding bagpipes to them. But this is only one of the many things they can do, from bagpipes’ to drums’ competitions the eight members of the band show off their abilities on stage. Plus the eight members of the band all wear kilts and red socks, can’t get much more Celtic and cooler than that!

They are incredibly entertaining with the public, typical of the open minded Scots, they make the audience clap and sing along as well as jump and dance to the Celtic notes. The bagpipes, when used to play covers acquire en entirely new role, that of typical Celtic instruments to turn a well-known song into a folk anthem. Red Hot Chilli Pipers does that in an amazing way passing from quiet and sad songs such as Snow Patrol’s “Chasing Cars” and Coldplay’s “Fix You” to rock anthems like Queen’s “We will rock you” to which the audience claps along. One of the highlights is when the band plays “Starlight” by Muse, who played at Paléo just the day before, the emotion of the fans is heard in their singing over the instrumental base.

L’Escale, 9:45pm – 10:05pm

Later on in the evening Red Hot Chilli Pipers offers the audience another exceptional show on a smaller scale inside the Tour Vagabonde, a lovely wooden tower reminding Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre! Needless to say that the result is superb, the stage of L’Escale makes the gig much more intimate but as fun as before.

It’s one of the pipers birthday so the audience sings along a “Happy Birthday”, a tiny bit out of tune but perfect for a good laugh. The band starts a piping competition involving the audience to vote for the best one. Great Scottish fun!

Iron Maiden, Grand Scène, 8:30pm-10:30pm

I catch a glimpse of the big stage from far as it is already very crowded when Iron Maiden takes the stage. From what I hear, the music is not too hard and leaves space for a good dose of melodic hard rock with those supreme guitar riffs and tapping intros. A technique in which they are masters!

Iron Maiden certainly knows how to entertain fans, old and young, for a two-hour gig!

Carlos Núñez, Le Dôme, 10:30pm-12am

This time the Village du Monde makes the audience travel to Galicia with Carlos Núñez and his typical bagpipes and flutes. On stage playing with him there are some guests from Brittany and also from Canada.

The result is an effective blend of Celtic sounds!

 

A second day back to the folk roots of Paléo! 

Simona @TakeMe2aConcert