Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Musician Elton John won’t be appearing at the Arena in Geneva Thursday evening: the singer has the flu. The concert, where he was to appear with Ray Cooper, is postponed to 26 May, Opus One announced Thursday afternoon. An earlier concert, in December, was postponed until today due to sickness.

Tickets for December or 3 February are valid for May, says the organizer, but if ticket-holders are unable to attend they have until 3 March to be reimbursed.

RSR public radio and Couleur 3 provide podcasts and downloads of several of the concerts

Crosby Stills & Nash were among the big hits at Paleo (photo: © 2010 Paléo / Boris Soula)

Nyon, Switzerland (GenevaLunch.com) – And the bands played on! The Paleo Festival closed Sunday, yet again, on a happy note for its organizers, a sold-out event, no major crises, and generally happy concert-goers. The only damp notes were problems with parking lot closures when heavy rains fell at the end of last week, just as the five-day event reached its peak, but given the encouragement the green festival gives to using trains and buses to reach it, this might have a positive result, prompting more people to reconsider driving in 2011.

Many of the concerts are available online from RSR and Couleur 3, depending on rights negotiations with the performing artists.

Big hits for 2010 were old favourites, starting with Crosby Stills & Nash, Johnny Clegg and Iggy Pop, but the Tribune de Geneve argues that hip-hop was the real star this year, performing in every corner of the festival.

The mix of music pulled in 230,000 fans, according to Paleo.

Paleo in 2011: mark your calendars now, 19-24 July.

It’s summer in Geneva, Switzerland, and with the annual office drain and fewer press releases the serious news takes up less space, and the lighter news around the world is keeping us all a little happier:

• One of the most cheering bits of news to come out of Gaza in years occured 30 July when children in Gaza appear to have broken a Guinness world record for the number of kites flown at the same time: the old record was 713 and the new one, still being calculated, may be as high as 4,000, thanks to an event organized by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency. Al Jazeera
• British women turned a cold shoulder on an attempt to beat the world record for the most women wearing bikinis in the same place, when only 42 of the 1,924 needed showed up; sunshine prevailed but a forecast for cloudy, cool weather in Southend-on-Sea, Essex was blamed. UK Telegraph
• Almost half of post-secondary students in a recent survey in Canada said they pass along their old tech toys – iPods, for example – to their less tech-savvy parents. The Globe and Mail, Canada
• At a music festival in North Germany featuring Anthrax and Napalm Death, organizers asked concert-goers not to kiss and share bottles of beer to reduce the spread of A/H1N1 swine flu. Reuters
• Scottish pride is on the line with new claims by a researcher that haggis, considered a national dish north of the English border, was actually an English dish 132 years before it was mentioned in Scotland (haggis, for the uninitiated, is made with oatmeal, liver, heart and lungs – and Wikipedia updated its entry on this today, based on the news). The Scotsman
• A “career shoplifter”, age 86, was arrested for the 61st time in Chicago, in a career that began with her first arrest in 1956. Chicago Sun-Times

Title: Fete de la Musique
Location: Lake Geneva region, France, Switzerland
Link out: Click here
Description: Thousands of musicians, hundreds of concerts and stages, all in celebration of the summer solstice.
City streets are flooded by music and revelers. Music is not limited to the streets, but can be heard in cathedrals, churches, concert halls, and in clubs!
Each city offers their own programmes and local newspapers publish inserts to help concert goers find their way around. Music is not the only thing you will find on the streets.
If you have never been to one of these “fetes” prepare for a long evening.
Start Date: 19 Jun 2009
End Date: 21 Jun 2009

Title: Free open air concerts
Location: Geneva
Link out: Click here
Description: The city of Geneva offers over 20 concerts during the month of May. Includes classical, brass-band and popular music.
Start Date: 14 May 2009
End Date: 29 May 2009