1. Lakeland Festival Erlach: Sunday

Well, after a great rocky-bluesy Saturday on 1st Lakeland Festival in Erlach, Sunday was Family day – and became my favourite-Lakeland-Festival-day. I was on the road early, this time by public transport. I was curious on the brunch, that took place this morning at lakezone of the festival, unfortunately missed it though. I didn’t check the timetable enough. But okay, time’s passing quickly at Bern mainstation and they got enough coffee. And music was more important anyway…

Yes, the hosts and organizers in the various sections of the festival were kept on the go early again. And I first went on a treasure hunt with Papagallo & Gollo.

Papagallo & Gollo

“Is this a friend of ours?” Coyote Ugly asked when he had spotted Mandelbär in the audience greeting and hugging all the kids. Ugly wasn’t sure and so that’s probably why ‘Mandelbär couldn’t take part in the adventure. Haha. Probably not, but the scene was just super cute. Papagallo “was frittering away” his precious time by keeping to take selfies with the children at barriers instead of keeping and eye out for the ship. And elsewise the adventurer of Gölä’s stories spontaniously reacted to the place and situations. So not only the children enjoyed the show. It was a super entertaining morning. And the parents kinda worked up sweat as well with all the gym and dance exercises. If I had my own children, I’d take them more often to see Papagallo & Gollo. So much better than most of what is on TV nowadays.

The Lakezone

Then there was a break on mainstage. It took a while til the afternoon concerts continued and so not only I was off direction lake to the lake stage. Later that afternoon the whole programme was moved to the lake because of the big heat at the mainstage area. Yes, there the flexibility of the organisation, crew and of course bands was shown. Only wondered, if everyone would be happy with this, because everyone had paid for the concerts, the lakestage though was free for the public. The change was positiv though. If it was for me, they could have put the Sunday programme there from the beginning. At the lake under the trees with a cool sea breeze every now and then, that went through your hair… some played volleyball, others were paddling over the lake and exersicing stand up paddling. And of course many loved jumping into the lake – not only festival visitors but also the musicians. Simply a super nice festival area. There was a wonderful relaxed Sunday afternoon / holiday atmosphere. Sure it wouldn’t have been possible to let the bands of the day before play there. But because the days were so different, the festival was so wonderfully varied.

The AutistiX

First concert I watched then was by The AutistiX. It belonged to the original programme at lakestage. If I knew the band, I was asked by a concert visitors. Was told that there was another similar band, where autists played. It’s when I started wondering, what actually is autism? I knew the term “autism”, but honestly didn’t know at this point what it really is.

The AutistiX are a 6 member rockband from London. The father of the drummer is speaking Swiss German though. He introduced the band in telling the audience to actually find out themselves, which three members were affected by autism. The band are three young guys, who perform with two of their fathers and an additional singer. At the beginning of their band they esp. covered The Beatles, but on that Sunday afternoon in Erlach they mainly played their own songs. They are touring successfully. Just the day before they had played in Schaffhausen at Stars In Town Startrampe. The band sounds great with their Brit rock and I liked it. A very energetic performance after the band was happy to jump into the lake.

The mother of the drummer and bandmanger did recomend the band report of Galileo after a short talk. Watch it [HERE]. There you get to know about the start of the band as well as the limitations and difficulties compared to other musicians. Besides I informed myself on the website of Autismus Deutsche Schweiz about the developement disorder. On that day I realized again, that one really should take the time more often to get informed about certain things.

Anna Rossinelli

The first concert from the mainstage programme was by Anna Rossinelli. She was barley standing on stage, she already started to strip. She usually wouldn’t do that but went swimming before… so she was standing on stage “Baywatch-like” in her bikini. Usually Anna would jump around on stage a lot more, the drummer mentioned, but it was simply too hot. Yes and she wasn’t the youngest anymore, getting closer to 30, the Basel musician added. You can imagine that the heat on this afternoon was topic No 1 with the bands.

Next to Anna’s favourite song “Streets Of Love”, they played with songs like “Bang Bang Bang”, “Broken Hearted” and “King Mustafa”, from her newest album “Takes Two To Tango” a great, a summerly concert. Even “Let it go” wasn’t missing. She loved seeing people dancing and going along. If anyone became too hot, they could dance and go swimming by turns. But somehow the kids in front of the stage were too lazy, even the singer thought it should be differently. The little ones should brim over with energy. But they just kept shaking their heads and prefered to watch her by sitting in front of the stage.

Troubas Kater

Somewhen inbetween Figaro Sportelli played, but because of the whole programme and time changes I missed him. So after a short stage change I continued watching Troubas Kater. They came directly from Heitere Openair and have had a very intenstive performing weekend. Yes, I was looking forward to them. I had seen the band a few times this summer and each time it’s even more fun. Actually they only tour for about one year now, but since their best talent nomination of SRF3, their publicity increased. “Säg kes word” (say no word) is the title of a song, but you wouldn’t ask Troubas Kater for. The ex Männer am Meer front guy QC is a great wordsmith and got some spontanious words by the audience also on this Sunday afternoon – Bielersee (lake of Biel), Hüetimeitschi (babysitter), Schinkegipfeli (ham roll) and Gummiboot (rubber boat). Yes, who’s seen Lo & Leduc, might be familiar with this. You just can’t get enough of it and what QC made out of it, was genious and pure entertainment.

Troubas Kater make real grounded music, they rap and sing along to it. You won’t find synthies and electric additionals, but accoustic guitar, sousaphone or accordeon. And possibly you like the rhythm sticks as much as I. Something like that I hadn’t seen since the music lessons at primary school. You? Well possible, that you also kept humming “ig bi nid so” long after the show or still got “Latvia” stuck in your ears hours after. Appaparently to get rid of ear worms, you should listen to the songs again – I recommend their album “Verdammte Novämber” therefor.

Nicole Bernegger

With her band and the stadium shaker Nicole Bernegger ended the family day. She came to the festival with husband and kids herself. They were on their way home again at the time of her concert though. Nicole was going to follow about two hours later and wouldn’t miss the children as much as back when it took her 3 hours to record “Homesick” at the studio, a song written for her children. Only one of many great songs of her second album “Small Town”. Nicole Bernegger proofed again on this early evening, that the title “The Voice Of Switzerland” was definitively well deserved – with or without casting show.

In her 50s style dress and the updo she looked great again. Have you seen the bird in her hair? So pretty! But it became warm. It’s when she mentioned that she should have applied to become a red buoy. With jokes, charme, incredible energy and amazing voice volume, she thrilled the numerous visitors. “Don’t Stay Away” or “Danger” she played among others too. On this Sunday her background singer Freda Goodlet was celebrating her birthday by the way.

With Nicole’s former blind audition cover “Feeling Good” as an encore, she released her audience with a real great feeling into the summer evening.

Yes, they were two super nice festival days. It was well organised with a very commited, foresightful and flexible crew. The festival took place on a very nice area and all the food you needed. There was a great international and national, partly exclusive music programme. Esp. I, as a big fan of Swiss bands, enjoyed a big part of these two days. With the additional concerts for VIPs, it seems even wroth to buy such tickets and spend some more money. That seemed to make sense with the least festiavals so far. At least for me, who always is in the middle of everything and needed action. And with all the other activities, it sure never became boring.