I really enjoyed this one. The lead singer, who seems like a warm and friendly fellow, has a sweet and husky tenor voice full of character. It works really well with their emotional and catchy indie-pop ballads. Naturally the older songs that I knew best were my favourite bits, but even the newer material came across really well. It was...
Luka Bloom performed for GLAS at the Collège des Coudriers in Geneva last Saturday and I had the honour of being his opening act. To sing my own songs for a crowd of around 250 – including many, many friends – while a musician of Luka Bloom’s stature waited in the wings was an exhilarating experience. My set went well, in spite...
It’s hard to believe that it’s been almost five years since I saw Lisa Hannigan playing in Lausanne. That gig was in a much smaller, more intimate venue, which is one reason I enjoyed it more than last night’s Antigel date in Geneva. But I think it was also because I have been finding it hard to get into her...
Fùgù Mango saved my evening. The most remarkable thing about the JVAL Openair festival is its setting. The stage is set up in the front yard of a large farmhouse in the foothills of the Jura, entirely surrounded by vineyards that roll down to the shores of Lake Geneva, with the Alps looming up on the other side. After darkness...
We left the kids with Nadine’s parents in Leeds last Saturday night and took the train up to Newcastle where we met up with David (of Mulled fame) to catch Ben Folds in concert. I had seen him live twice previously and was blown away each time. Both occasions were before I started writing about gigs on this site, so...
This Libertines performance was raucous (but not as raucous as I expected), messy (but not as messy as I expected) and a bit of a shambles at times (but not as shambolic as I expected). That said, every now and then – and just often enough to hold my interest – their magical melodies shone through and the whole became...
Fribourg’s Nouveau Monde is a very cool venue. The building is the town’s old railway station, with the bar in the main hall and the music venue in one of the wings. The room is a nice size, fitting only a few hundred people. There was a decent crowd for Shearwater, but it was far from full. I drove up...
Three gigs in just over a week: I’m a lucky man! Having seen The Tallest Man on Earth in the city centre the night before, last night’s Lynched concert involved a trek out to the commune of Bernex where the local Catholic church was the venue. (Antigel makes a virtue of using unusual venues throughout the canton of Geneva –...
I had seen Kristian Matsson live twice before, both times in Amsterdam and both times solo. This full band gig was part of the wonderful and eclectic Antigel festival and took place in Geneva’s recently refurbished Alhambra. The venue is lovely: great acoustics and comfortable seats, although the lines of sight aren’t great from the sides of the first balcony....
This was a special gig. Tété is a French musician, of Senegalese extraction, who has had a few hits in French-speaking countries with his clever and catchy acoustic pop songs. He has four or five albums under his belt and is currently working on a new one. As a means of trying out some ideas and recapturing the spirit of...
