Season changes often mean a lot of things. First of all, we can free ourselves from some fabric layers, but as well the suspence rises high while awaiting one of spring’s best parts: festival line ups releases. While last summer was pretty disappointing in this matter, my favourite winter festival visit at Baloise Session was a hit, as always.
There is one event I look forward to every year, which makes me tick winter as almost done, let’s say almost a celebration. If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you probably know it already: I am talking about Zermatt Unplugged.
You know how I feel about the festivals I love. There’s never enough and there’s always a coming back the year after. This is how I feel about Baloise Session. This is probably still the best indoor festival I was ever part to, because of the pretty visual aspect, the spot on organisation and a golden line up.
I belong to those people who usually is quite up to date about artists in general. I mean, I have soundcloud on on a daily basis and discovering new music is like grabbing my daily coffee to go for me. Well, sometimes I apparently miss out, I guess nobody’s perfect. In case you belong to those who never had a glimpse of Odesza, I think your time has come.
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.
Fall means a lot of things: change of temperature, grey days and layering of clothes. A big Yikes! for me. But fall also means that the hippie dances at festivals are replaced with indoor locations. Some of them are simple, others outstanding. Last week I was part of one of the most beautiful indoor festival settings I’ve seen so far. Baloise Session has me two times this year and let collide two different generations. But we all danced together in the end. The power of music. So kitsch but so true at the same time.
I’ve seen tons of different concert venues so far, and I honestly was thinking that nothing can impress me anymore. To celebrate the rays of sun finally blessing us here in Switzerland, I was able to be part of a live session that was just one of a kind. An acoustic session by Kelvin Jones, on a tram riding through Zurich for an whole hour.
Sometimes the best things happen under the most unexpected circumstances. Just a few days ago, on June 17h, the Red Hot Chili Peppers released their 11th studio album. The whole making process was a bit more challenging than some previous works, but that’s maybe exactly why they came back showing us the best side of their funky Californian vibe, despite the 33+ years of musical career.
On the second festival day we had way more time to enjoy everything slowly in Zermatt. We decided to go uphill to the highest event stage located on 3030m over the sea level to hear some fine jazz and face fully to the sun shining down. And who had known… later on I would be very amazed by an artist I should have heard about a long long time already.
Sometimes it really happens (shock!), I don’t need to travel far out of town to join in for a music festival. It’s kind of surreal for me just to be able to get to the venue in nearly 20 minutes: while the most festivals are happening spread all over the country, this time everything was concentrated in the middle of my hometown Zurich. And as I could see during these two days, the M4Music certainly is one of the most influencing festivals in this part of the country.
bohemianstella 