On my second night strolling around Basel, everything was buzzing a little more: the quiet of the week before was replaced by the Autumn’s Fair flashing lights and the horrendously loud remixes of pop songs turned into EDM nightmares. Sorry, had to add that. Fortunately for me, Basel embraced me for another reason: my second evening at Baloise Session. After a dance to electro swing and 80s synthie, now it was the case of long awaited Indie Sounds night, starring two completely different bands: BOY and Kaiser Chiefs.

Entering the Baloise Session setting gives you always the same chill: the lights are perfectly set and melt together with the perfectly placed tables and candles. The wine is good and the drinks on point, and everyone knows that for the most part of it, the chairs won’t be occupied for long. For my amusement, but definetly not fun for those who paid extra to be seated on front row. However, this should be clear by now I guess.

Opening act BOY was a great choice to begin a night that would be turning into a rock and roll party. That’s the great part about Baloise Session: you never know how it turns out. But what’s for sure is that the artists really seem to enjoy a smaller setting from time to time, because it gives them a bigger freeedom to move and this usually leads to surprises, which is completely impossible in an arena.

Sonja Glass and Valeska Steiner, started our night with the biggest Hits from their latest album, released in 2015, “We Were Here”: a quite short one, but packed with great songs only (my thoughts about the record here). The crowd needed a minute to get that it’s completely ok to stand in front of a stage, even it’s not headbanging time. Yet. The girls slowly drifted into the whole record, including songs of their previous, internationally acclaimed work “Mutual Friends”. It’s easy to drift into a dreamy state by listening to their lyrics, and it’s even easier to get caught in the magic of Valeskas voice, relating BOY’s music to your own tales and situations with topics like the internet, cheating in hotel rooms, the simplest heartbreak or the anger towards “Boris”, I really wonder how the dude screw up so badly. The perfect ending was made by “July”, a slow one, a good one. So good that it’s able to tear you apart.

After experiencing the dreamy part of Indie (but nowadays, what is Indie anymore?), after a short break and a few cheers here and there, it was time to welcome the night’s headliner, Kaiser Chiefs. The lads from Leeds (I know, I’m into sarcastic writing today) that had their breaktrough with the giant hit “Ruby”were certainly ready to throw some guitar riffs into our faces and let us forget the drifting into dreams I was talking about earlier. Long story short: it was time to wake up again.

Star of the band is frontman Ricky Wilson, there’s no doubt about that. He made it clear from the first seconds while rushing on stage, that he’d be the biggest pain in the ass for every photographer, me included. The stage is small, but he managed to run a marathon in those two hours, jumping on boxes and twirling around the microphone, the mic stand and that lovely turquoise leather jacket I’d really like to have stolen if I could. Kaiser Chiefs presented their fresh released new album “Stay Together”, that was freshly printed this October. Despite Opening with the same named single, the fun continued with older masterpieces like “Every Day I Love You Less And Less”, “Ruffians” and, of course “Ruby”, where the point of no return was reached. I found myself wanting to throw around those chips bags that were laying on the tables, for the sake of a good party but also for everyone’s safety by skipping the wine glasses. I was really impressed by Wilson, still being able to find breath to sing, while roaming on things, making selfies in the audience, sitting down (!) in the crowd and kissing a couple of almost fainting ladies on the cheek. I’m telling you, when the music is great and the band in such a good place to play around a bit with us mortals, instead of rushing down the setlist, you know you had the night of your life. Parties like this are rare, especially with bigger names, so you should feel lucky to have been able to join them .I was. And I hope I could take you with me for a couple of seconds while reviewing this awesome night.

Baloise Session will be taking place again in 2017, from October 20th to November 9th. For more informations click here.

A huge thank you to Baloise Session for having me the third year in a row. Can’t wait for the fourth.