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Finding a good bar in Pau was important to me; but finding live music was even more crucial to my survival. Some people smoke, some drink, by vice and the one thing which can feed my soul is music. Music in my books has to be live. Yes, as I write this there is Jazz coming out of my stereo, but that is just comfort, not a source of life.
In some ways I am easily pleased when it comes to a choice of music, I don’t have to see the great and good perform in acoustically brilliant concert halls. I need, and need is not an understatement, to hear the enthusiastic and talented perform as if there life depended on it. My work has taken me to many cities, and I have followed my passion for music in all of them; each place has offered a totally new experience.
There is however, a trend. The larger the city or town the more you have to travel. Have you ever noticed that in a big city a place will specialise, they will have jazz, or funk, or classical, but you rarely get them all in the same month at the same venue. This is where small towns come into their own. I found a bar in Pau with has every type of music. It is a small venue and a small town, so they can’t be too picky. But they get people who really want to play. These musicians are not being sent to play by their agents, they are playing their hearts out because they want to.
I turned up early on a Friday night and was initially a little worried. There didn’t seem to be a huge amount of atmosphere. There staff were all sitting around a table eating their diner and I had to wait a couple of minuets before I was served, despite there being less than ten of us in the place.
I soon discovered that everyone else in the place knew each other. I sat at the bar and watched as gradually the place filled up. As each new person arrived they were greeted by a member of the ever growing original group.
I have to admit, and this is no compliment to my intelligence, it took me a while to realise that this was not a case someone inviting his mates along and creating a make shift party. This was actually an example of how the Palois live. Pau is a vibrant city, but it still seems to think that it is a village. As a result everyone knows everyone. Before the night was out I had met more people than I know in my home town in England.
I had actually found a bar in Pau which fed my need for live music, was the heart of a community and also was to become the centre of my world as long as I was living with the Palois.
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Source by Jack Lords