2015 is over, concert-wise it’s been an amazing year filled with many emotions, new bands, new gigs and interviews! Where should I start? Well I guess from the beginning… I am still working as a free-lance journalist for The Liberation-Indie Nation and most of the concerts I attended, and the interviews I did in 2015, were through them.
At the end of January 2015 I attended Antigel Festival for the first time, I just went one day but it was a great one, there I saw Scottish post rock band Mogwai. Their gig was mindblowing! At The end of February the cold winter nights were filled yet again with another warming up festival: Les Hivernales de Nyon. I had never really experienced the town of Nyon if it weren’t as a pit stop to get to Paléo or Caribana Festival. I discovered its bars transformed in cozy venues, there I saw a Swiss blues band which was probably my best discovery of 2015: The Two. At the Usine à gaz in Nyon I also saw indie rock band Peace and The Family Rain, both great live. At La Parenthèse, a cozy cave which saw the coming back of another great Swiss band The Rambling Wheels!
I attended Dark Horses‘ gig at Le Romandie, another great discovery! On March 31st I went back to my beloved Les Docks to see The Dandy Warhols and had a blast. Then on April 21st I dragged some friends of mine to Balthazar‘s gig, I didn’t know the Belgian band at the time but we all really enjoyed the concert and made another amazing discovery because the support band was Swiss band Puts Marie another must see act!!
At the beginning of May I went to the annual Festival Balélec biggest student festival in Europe held in Lausanne on the EPFL Campus, there I saw one of the most amazing bands coming out of Ticino: Make Plain, two young guys who play folk music and make you dance like crazy! then I saw British alternative rock band The Subways and that was grand!
And then, well, it was already the time for the Summer Festivals… I’m not sure if you remember the wise words I said last year about having to reduce my consume of gigs but it didn’t really work! I started with attending some days of Caribana Festival in Crans-sur-Nyon where I saw, among others, Marilyn Manson, it was a fun gig and thank God he was in a good mood! I also attended the reggae night with Gentleman and others and really enjoyed it! And on the Sunday Mika was headlining and put on an amazing and colourful show!
On June 13th there was a Pro-Ticino party in Place de la Louve in Lausanne and I went there to see Make Plain again, I just can’t seem to get enough of them. It was raining but people were dancing and it was great! On 16th of June I went to the festival “Art Circus” at Les Docks and I saw the amazing duo The Two. One week after I saw Make Plain again at Fete de la musique, on the 21st of June, always in Lausanne along with The Two and the day before I went to Geneva to check out the Fete de la musique there it was cool, many people and good vibes.
On June 22nd I went to Zürich to see George Ezra at X-Tra Club, it was brilliant to see him live, he is really talented and friendly!
And then started the beautiful month of July, not because I was born in July but because of Montreux Jazz Festival and Paléo. The first to kick off was as usual Montreux Jazz, I went there to see Lily Wood and The Prick, one of the revelations of the Summer with their song “Prayer in C”. On the 9th of July one of my dreams came true as I got to see Scottish singer Paolo Nutini again, at Auditorium Stravinski at Montreux Jazz Festival his performance was just mind-blowing and the support band Alabama Shakes where a revelation with charismatic singer Brittany’s voice!
A few days later I saw Foals for the first time, at Montreux Jazz Lab, another memorable gig! I also interviewed Isaac Delusion but unfortunately didn’t make it to the concert at MJF but I saw them at For Noise Festival in Pully-Lausanne a bit later in the Summer.
In between these two big festivals I went to a smaller festival called Les Georges in Fribourg on July 16th where I saw American band Other Lives once again, their performance was just amazing and their new songs truly enchanting! I discovered them at Paléo a couple of years back and they’ve been one of my favourites since! On the same night I saw Peter Kernel, an art-punk band from Ticino!
A week and a half later I took a week off work to enjoy Paléo Festival completely! For its 40th birthday Paléo went bigger adding one day to the festival so that it was truly a 7-day festival, not bad ah? It was an intense week but well worth it! On Monday 20th July the star Robbie Williams pretty much got all attentions, I’m not personally a big fan of him but I truly loved his gig, there’s no doubt he is a showman!
Day 2, 21st of July was a memorable rock night with among other The Dø, The Scripts and one of my very favourites: Kings of Leon! I also had the chance to be interviewed by Rete 3, the third channel of the Swiss Italian national radio, and talk about my passion for music and concerts, about my blog and my work for The Liberation-Indie Nation it was great fun 🙂 Day 3, 22nd of July was a rainy day in the name of folk-rock featuring Angus & Julia Stone, Shake Shake Go, Passenger and Sting. On Day 4 I interviewed Duck Duck Grey Duck, a Swiss surf rock ‘n’ roll band and saw, among others, Ben Harper & The Innocent Criminals. On day 5 I particularly liked Peter Kernel‘s gig and this time I had the chance to interview them before their gig, my first interview in Italian by the way (yey!)! I loved Patti Smith‘s gig, which was on day 6, the same day as Robert Plant‘s gig, a night with the legends of the 70s-80s! It was also a day for a sensational Swiss discovery with Yellow Teeth, a really good blues rock band! I also had the chance to meet Charlie Winston at a round table with other media! Day 7, the last day was closed with a bang by David Guetta and the fireworks preceding his performance. Paléo was amazing once again and I also saw some Asian bands at the Village du Monde, which was cool!
On Friday August 14 I went for the first time to Antidote Festival, a small festival in Yverdon-Les-Bains there I discovered yet another great Swiss band: No Way, which play a magnetic rock blues.
On August 20-22 I attended For Noise Festival in Pully-Lausanne, there I saw among others F.F.S. a supergroup made up by Franz Ferdinand and Sparks and I absolutely loved their performance it was real fun. Canadian band Ought were one of the best discoveries. I also had the chance to do some interviews with Ought, Owen Pallett and Swiss band Labrador City. Sadly, this was to be the last 3-day For Noise as this beautiful small festival will do its 20th and last edition on 20th August 2016, the date is already saved in my calendar and it should be on yours as well!
The day after For Noise ended, on Sunday 23 August I took a trip to Winterthur for the last night of the Winterthurer Musikfestwochen. There I had the chance to take part in an amazing folk night with Villagers, Fink and Ben Howard. A night filled with many emotions and also some rain! Before the concert started I was lucky enough to interview Villagers.
From 26 to 29th August 2015 I went to Zürich Openair, the indie-rock open air per excellence in Switzerland! I had loads of fun, saw many great bands like The Libertines, Blood Red Shoes, The Kooks, Tame Impala, Kasabian and Stereophonics. I had the chance to interview Mighty Oaks, Milky Chance, Echosmith and Piers Agett of Rudimental 🙂 Milky Chance were one of my favourite concerts! and of course a festival is also a place for new musical discoveries: Bears Den, Blaudzun, Josef Salvat and Pond are some of them.
On 12-13th September I took off direction Berlin for the first edition of Lollapalooza Berlin. The bands and music offered were great, a lot of them were the same as in Zürich so I tried to see the ones I hadn’t seen yet. But the festival was organized really bad, you had to stand in line for hours for toilets and food. And I think the four stages were enclosed into a space which was not big enough. I’ve been to loads of festivals, also bigger than Lollapalooza Berlin but it was the first time I experienced it so bad. But luckily the amazing concerts I saw such as Macklemore and Ryan Lewis, the touching moment with Sam Smith, Belle & Sebastian and the mind-blowing end of the festival with Muse made up for it.
On September 20th I saw American artist Sufjan Stevens live for the first time at Théâtre du Léman, in Geneva, it was absolutely stunning! I am not used to sit down at a concert but it was perfect for his music. And I fell in love with his last album Carrie & Lowell which live is truly magnetic.
On September 30th I went to see The Two (again I know) at La Cave du Bleu Lézard, it was once again amazing and they were accompanied by special guest Martin Harley. You really need to check them out! On the 4th of October I went back to Geneva, this time at Post Tenebras Rock -L’Usine to see one of my very favourite bands: The Vaccines. Before the gig I had the huge pleasure to interview Freddie Cowan and Pete Robertson, respectively guitarist and drummer of the band. If a few years back you would have told me that I would be interviewing them one day I would never have believed it! Their gig was unforgettable, good old fun!
On 19th October I went to see Stereophonics (yes, again) this time at Les Docks in Lausanne. In the afternoon I was lucky enough to have a chat with singer Kelly Jones and bassist Richard Jones. Their gig was brilliant, I’ve always wanted to see Stereophonics live and this year I managed to see them not only once but three times in little over 4 months and to interview them, not bad right?!
On November 27th another amazing British alternative rock band came to Les Docks: Editors. It was the first time I saw them and it was oh so good! Their support band The Fawn was also great!
I went to Hamburg to visit a friend of mine and on December 6th we went to a free concert by Will Robert, a young English artist, at Haus 73. We really enjoyed his gig!
On December 10th, Swiss rock ‘n’ roll band, The Animen make their come back at Le Romandie in Lausanne to present their last album Are We There Yet?. They’re one of the best Swiss bands around and also one of my favourites so I was super happy to see them again! I also had the pleasure to interview the singer Théo Wyser and guitarist Julien (Jool) Marty!
The day after, on Friday December 11th I went back once more to Les Docks, one of my favourite venues, for its 10th birthday. Many hosts played during the night, among them La Gale, Franz Treichler, Oxmo Puccino and Verveine. Later on there was also a fun DJ battle among people working in the music business. It was a hell of a party!
Little more than a week later, on the 19th of December, I fought the cold and went to Zürich to see Florence + The Machine at Hallenstadion. It was brilliant, one of the best concerts I’ve ever been to! Florence Welch with her contagious smile and her passion makes you smile and feel the music very deeply from beginning to end, superb!
On December 26th I saw Make Plain once again (probably for the 4th or 5th time in 2015) this time in Ticino in the Verzasca Valley in a tiny wooden den called Lokalino. They played for over 2 hours with a lot of passion and charisma.
So yes 2015 is over, it left me with amazing musical memories that I’ll cherish. All the interviews I did thanks to The Liberation-Indie Nation enriched my personal and professional baggage, every encounter was unique as every concert was. So thank you to The Liberation, thanks to the artists, bands, promoters, labels, the festivals for rendering all of this possible. And of course thank you to my concert buddies!
2016 has only just started but there’s so much to look forward too! Some examples? I’m so excited to see Adele and Mumford & Sons for the first time in May 2016 in Zürich… and then there’s Alex Turner and Miles Kane‘s reunion as The Last Shadow Puppets after 8 years, their second album Everything You’ve Come to Expect comes out on April 1st, 2016 (no joke!) and I can’t wait to see them live!
So bring it on 2016!!! 😉
takemetoaconcert 