Equiblues 2015!

This was the third time I have been to the Equiblues rodeo and country music festival in St. Agreve, France -- an annual event that draws upwards of 25,000 people and that this year was celebrating its 20th edition.

It was one of the first big country-western festivals I attended (back in 2004) when I first started following the "scene". Last time I was there was 3 years ago -- read what I wrote back then HERE and HERE.

Equiblues lasts the better part of a week, but this year, I only was able to make it there for Friday evening and Saturday, and -- alas -- I missed all of the rodeo -- though I saw some of the cowboy mounted shooting competition.

One of my reasons for going was to meet with Georges Carrier, an expert on country music in France who had been the director of the Country Rendez-vous festival in Craponne for 18 years.

I parked in front of the scene in the photo at the top of this page -- a fitting welcome image.

But the photo below encapsulates the atmosphere event better: "Authentic Dreams". Festivals like Equiblues are signal embodiments of what I call "real imaginary" spaces -- a re-created; no -- a created -- "America" where everyone wears cowboy hats and boots and hustles and bustles amid the trappings of the frontier; but where little has much really to do with the United States. As usual, except for some of the artists and rodeo performers, I was one of the only -- if not the only -- American there. I did hear English in the crowd from one couple strolling through, but UK English.

Actually, I found this year's Equiblues just about identical with what I found three years ago. Even the same food (sausage and frites; steak and frites; wine; beer...) and physical set-up. For festival-run merch, tickets, food, and events -- you have to pay in Equiblues dollars that you have to buy with Euros: one dollar = one Euro.

As usual, I was fascinated by the use of flag imagery -- American flags, Confederate flags and various other flags and banners. They are used basically without much meaning, as decoration mean to provide an "American" or "Rebel" spin, as backdrops, clothing, ornamentation.

In the photo below, fly in a row, over a souvenir and clothing stand,  an American flag, a Confederate flag with the words "Heritage Not Hate", a  Confederate flag and, I think, an Iowa state flag. I doubt of many people understood the significance of the slogan......

Check out the flag-inspired clothing, too.

The music, of course, with crowded concerts every night -- by American, Canadian and French artists -- under a circus-like big top, is one of the highlights. And there is a big space for line-dancers. I am still fascinated by the hypnotic geometric movements of these masses of people.

 There was even a Miss Equiblues contest.

But most visitors looked more like this:

More Rebel Flags

I have added a number of pictures from the Country Rendez-vous in Craponne to the photo gallery of Rebel Flags in Europe that I have posted on my web site.

Someone at Craponne told me that he thought there were more Rebel Flags on show now than in the past; he estimated that it was almost 50-50 with American Flags. It didn't seem that much to me... but they certainly are very visible. This year there was a stand selling all sorts of Confederate stuff, including T-shirts of Robert E. Lee and other Confederate heroes, all clearly imported from the US.

The Confederate Flag in Europe

I've posted a Photo Gallery of pictures showing the Confederate flag on display in Europe's Imaginary wild west and country scene.

It's one of the most striking of all the striking visual images of the wild west scene in Europe. The Stars and Bars (or Southern Cross) is used on its own or in tandem with the American flag, the Stars and Stripes. It’s found as decoration, on T-shirts, pins, jewelry, backdrops, logos, you name it.

For most country music fans in the scene, the flag seems to represent pure “rebel-hood” or the anti-Establishment, rather than to have a direct link with the Civil War, Confederacy, or slavery, i.e. connotations that it evokes in the United States. “They don't now much about the history of the southern cross and for them it's not important, it’s a link to freedom and rebellion against the establishment and their normal life,” one German member of the scene, a former employee of one of the Pullman City wild west theme parks and a close observer of hobbyist and other behavior, told me. Rockabilly fans also use it as a symbol of their favorite music -- album covers often feature the image.

Nonetheless, outside the country scene per se, some skinhead and neo-Nazi groups also use the flag -- as a symbol of racism, to link them to the Ku Klux Klan and other extremists.

The photos I've posted show the Rebel flag in its country scene incarnation in, various countries -- Germany, France, Switzerland, Poland, Czech Republic, Italy.