It’s music festival season in Europe, and we’ve been making the most of getting out to concerts and festivals in Switzerland.
The season kicked off for us while I was in Delft with my daughter: my two sons went with a friend to the Frauenfeld OpenAir festival – the largest hip-hop festival in Europe, apparently – to see Travis Scott. It’s not really my thing, so I was happy enough they managed it all on their own (and came home safely, of course).
We often try to go to the Montreux Jazz Festival. This year, on the last Monday of the event – July 10th – my wife and I had the chance to rush over and use some tickets offered by a friend to go and see Norah Jones, an old favourite of ours. Her set was amazing, but so was the warm-up act: Mavis Staples (of The Staple Singers fame) turned 84 that day, and wowed the Stravinsky Auditorium audience with her still-incredible voice.
Two days later – on July 12th – we headed across to Bern to see Muse, this time with the whole family. Sadly the weather turned bad – something we were woefully ill-prepared for – just as the concert started.
The main support act was Royal Blood – they were very good, a big sound for a two-man act.
Muse was just incredible. This is the third time I’ve seen them, over the years, and the shows get more and more impressive.
We were quite near the stage and right next to the catwalk, so also had a great view.
I do love how Google Photos sometimes generates “panoramas” with visual artefacts. This one had Muse’s bass player in it three times.
By the time we arrived home we were utterly drenched and just a bit miserable. But it was such a good gig that overall I’d say it was worth it.
On Friday July 14th, I was back at Montreux, once again, this time with three very good friends who had offered me a trip to the Montreux Jazz Lab – to see Overmono and The Blaze – for my 50th birthday.
I’d only heard a few tracks by The Blaze before then, and I will say that I was very impressed. Really nice, melodic electronic music.
Our last event of this 8-day musical extravaganza was at Paleo, a festival that is near and dear to my heart.
This is one of those festivals that we just love to go to, irrespective of who is playing. This year we managed to get tickets for the Tuesday, which had Louise Attaque and Black Eyed Peas playing.
Louise Attaque were quite good: the first half was relatively low key, playing their early hits from the mid-to-late 90s. I zoned out a bit for the second half, where they brought on more musicians and played more recent numbers.
We managed to watch them from the top of a structure that afforded some pretty nice photo opportunities.
These panoramas give a sense for the event during the day and at night.
I also had fun taking hyperlapse shots of the crowd.
Between the concerts we headed for some food, and didn’t even try to get back up into the structure for the main event.
Honestly I didn’t regret not having a great view for Black Eyed Peas, who performed a largely disappointing set. I’m not a huge fan of theirs, anyway, but I definitely felt like this one was a little “phoned in”. They spent a lot of time talking to the audience – presumably to get their breath back, as most of them didn’t appear to be in peak form – and seemed to rely heavily on the videos shown on a large screen above their heads distracting the audience.
Despite the minor disappointment of the last gig, we still had a lot of fun over this intense 2-week period.
Right now we have a bit of a break before a couple more shows in August: there’s a metal festival from August 18th-20th called Rock the Lakes that we’re thinking about trying (a friend is helping organise it) and my daughter won a couple of free tickets to see Zara Larsson and Robbie Williams at the Zurich OpenAir festival a few days afterwards on the 22nd.
All in all it’s shaping up to be a fun, musical summer, which makes up for the fact we’re probably not going anywhere very far. Partly this is due to us having a puppy to look after, but I do admit that staying here for the summer can be a lot of fun – and sometimes more relaxing – too.