We went to Chamonix last Monday, and it continued to rain, as it seems to have done since October of last year. If it rains on St Swithin’s Day, folklore has it that it will rain for the following 40 days. The origin of this tale is that St Swithin, the Bishop of Winchester, requested to be buried outside the Cathedral so the steps of his people and the rain would fall on his grave. When he was canonized in 971 they decided to bring his body inside the cathedral, on July 15th, when the transfer took place there was a massive storm, and it rained for days. A similar legend follows St Medard here in France, a jolly chap who was Bishop of Noyon and often depicted laughing, with his mouth wide open, and therefore he is invoked against toothache. He has the same rain prophesy but based around his feast day of June 8th: “Quand il pleut à la Saint-Médard, il pleut quarante jours plus tard”. Due to his supposed power over the rain, he was also invoked against bad weather, sterility and imprisonment. He is the patron saint of vineyards, brewers, captives and prisoners, the mentally ill, and peasants; the common factor being presumably all people needing rain, wanting to avoid working in the rain or rotting in a damp wet space. He is oddly referred to as St Merd in a couple of places, I will just leave that there.
The rain stopped briefly on the way back to Lyon, just as we looked for somewhere to have lunch in Annecy. It was my first visit to the bustling and popular city on the lake, and I understand now why the French make such a deal about it. The lake is massive, and the waters flushed from the winter snow seem to flow turquoise, and it nestles against wooded mountain peaks most of which are a natural park crisscrossed by trails and walking paths maintained by the city. Annecy itself is a modern conurbation of 5 towns of which Annecy and Vieux Annecy are the picturesque and the other 3 are just typical medium city regional France: lots of ugly apartment buildings, light industrial and retail zones around the main roads. Just to confuse matters, there is a part of Annecy called “La Vielle Ville” and that is where you should head. Its core is medieval, with canals and small alleys and car-free streets leading to the lakeshore and other parks dotted around it. The buildings are painted in pastels, with many half-timbered houses remaining from its glory years surrounding the old castle. There are a good number of art nouveau apartment buildings and hotels around its edges and leading towards the main lake.
It was only the last week of May, but it was rammed with tourists. Dressed schizophrenically due to the weather, some in shorts, some in rain slickers and hats, some about to hike, some dressed for formal lunch. It has good food. Michelin lists 48 restaurants in the 5 towns that make up greater Annecy. One 3 star, four 2 star, five 1 star and a full eight Bib Gourmand rated. To put that into context Annecy is the 42nd largest city in France with 240,000 population, Bordeaux at 6th with 1.3 million has 49 listed in Mich and less starred, Toulouse at 4th with 1.4 million has 37 rated in Michelin. Annecy likes its food for sure, and so we sought out the Fauborg Ste-Claire, a little old street tucked away through an arch which seems to be resto central.
We struck out at Cozna but bounced 2 doors down to Le Bilboquet, where we enjoyed the business lunch set menu at €32. This type of well-executed seasonal lunch the French do superbly, an amuse-bouche of pea-soup, a salad of asparagus and a main course of slow cooked veal, mushrooms, spring bean and peas, sweet potato and caramelized black carrots. The room was what the French think of as modern chic, which is lots of grey wood tones, dark wood floor and tables, some commercial anonymous modern art in the same grey palate and the color highlight being that on each table one glass was in a bright orange glass. What they fail at in terms of interior design, they smash it out of the park foodwise. The rest of the clientele were all of an age where the lunch is not lunch without wine, but I was driving, and we had been drinking in Chamonix with friends, so we timidly stuck with mineral water. The dessert was a Savoie version of strawberry shortbread, which was fabulous. Lunch, coffee and service came to €68.50, amen for France!
On Friday we went to see Beth Gibbons at the glorious art deco ‘Bourse du Travail’ which is a short walk from us in Place Guichard. The former ‘labour exchange’ as we would have referred to it growing up in England, or perhaps ‘hiring hall’ in the US, is now converted to an event space with adjunct offices for various NGOs and work agencies, it has a Rivera style 1930s mural homage to labor. We are still adjusting to French concert mores so we managed to miss Bill Ryder-Jones, the support, which was a bummer as I have his ‘Yawn’ album and loved it. The tickets do not mention any support, but I saw from her gig in Paris on Monday that he was support, the tickets said 8.00 pm which I assumed was ‘Doors 8.00PM’. We are used to a more chilled regime so were surprised when we rocked up at 8.40 we found out we had not only missed Bill they were getting ready for Beth and the stage was set with her band’s not insubstantial gear. The audience had the sweet if naive belief that if they start clapping, they will encourage the act to start. They tried that a couple of times without success but as 9.00 pm ticked by the smoke machines started and some background drones, then roadies delivering drinks to strategic spots finally heralded the arrival of the band, followed by a very relaxed Beth Gibbons. She has not released any solo material since the quasi hiatus of Portishead, other than a project with Paul Webb of Talk Talk fame under the Rustin Man moniker in 2002. Technically, Portishead is still a thing, but they pick their spots.
This tour was to support her new album Lives Outgrown, she has a backing band of 7, and they played Zurich and Barcelona in the 4 days from Paris to Lyon, tomorrow she plays Berlin and then Copenhagen the next night, then Utrecht, Brussels and finishing off at the Barbican in London. The album is pastoral, more folk-rock than trip-hop for sure, it’s a bit one paced (slow) and downbeat if not actually depressing, lots of ‘shame’ in the lyrics. Happily, played live it was more uplifting, partly because the mix on the album has her incredible voice too low and live the instrumentation sounds more interesting. She mixed in two Rustin Man songs, the ‘hits’ from that album ‘Mysteries’ and the oddly poppy ‘Tom the Model’. The band is interesting as she definitely wants a more wooden sound, so as much as there is a drummer and keyboard player there are two guitarists and two violinists, with one also happy to shred guitar. There was also Howard Jacobs, a man-bunned master of many trades playing: (checks list) Contrabass Clarinet, Vibraphone, Timpani, Baritone Sax, Flute, Bombo, a saw, Bodhrán, Metal and Gongs, Recorder, Hammered Guitar and odd bits of shaky stuff. Beth has been doing this long enough to know what she wants and what she doesn’t want is a spotlight, so she is at best back-lit but generally bathed in a variety of mood lights with the band. In contrast to the last few gigs I saw in the US it is still seen as poor form here to spend the concert recording every fecking song on your phone, people can sneak an odd photo in, but it was pleasant to see the audience enjoy the show with their own eyes rather than looking at their phones. She does not say a word until a shy “Merci beacoup et bon nuit” as the lights come up after barely 55 minutes. The well-behaved Lyon audience hooped and hollered, and they came on for an encore. The lights bathing the stage were in Portishead blue and as she sang “Ohh, can’t anybody see” the hairs on the back of my neck stood up and that pure voice held the whole audience spellbound through ‘Roads’. She finished with probably the most uplifting and uptempo song from the new album, ‘Reaching Out’. The audience stamped and cheered, but the house lights were up and Beth and the band waved hearty farewells from the stage, and we snuck out into the rain sprinkled streets of Part-Dieu.
Anecdotes and Antidotes in Burgundy 