Another anniversary has passed, namely the Bataille des fleurs, a parade in which the various associations and clubs in the town decorate floats with thousands of carnations and hire bands of varying musical competence. The whole event is commented, through deafeningly powerful loudspeakers, by an inane MC with a verbal diarrhoea which would be laughable if it wasn't so condescending and vaguely racist.
All but one of the bands came from Italy. One of the recent innovations is in the percussion section. To increase the range of drums, whilst not having to increase the number of musicians, they have taken to mounting the drums on a kind of trolley, strapped to the drummer, which rolls along on fat little tyres. Clearly the bands would have a problem with steps or pavements. One band, in gorgeously naff pink synthetic uniforms.... (see clip ), ....liberally festooned with silver spangles, sported two of these trolleys. One was for a drummer, and so self propelled. The other was a much bigger affair, like a very large lawnmower. It was being pushed along by a tiny, wizened old man, who was almost horizontal with effort. On the trolley was a very large amplifier and speaker cabinet, along with a petrol driven electrical generator. Attached to the trailing wire from this contraption was a very healthy, heavily muscled man marching along with soldierly panache whilst playing a bass guitar with what might be politely called 'approximation'. Still, his efforts - for a short time at least - drowned out the commentary from the podium.
The band that garnered the greatest acclaim, though, in this town which has a southerner's expert appreciation of all that is noisy and raucous, was a group of a score or so of aged Hell's Angels on Harley Davidson motorbikes. As they passed the podium, they revved up their bikes repeatedly in eardrum rupturing, synchronised crescendos, bowing modestly to the tremendous applause that greeted their musicianship.
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