Swiss Live Talents: MUMA 2017

At the weekend the 3rd Swiss Live Talents took place in Bern, that was completed this year with the Music Marathon. And I could be part of it. As a supporter of Swiss music I of course was curious about this weekend even I haven’t visited everything planned in the end.

Music Marathon

Swiss Live Talents Awards are organised by SwissAmp every 2 years. The event is bringing artists, media, concert organisers and judges of music professionals together. Now this event was completed by the Music Marathon – shortly MUMA. During 2 days 40 bands and musician from 7 categories were performing in six different clubs. Next to it, the winners of each category were priced in an award ceremony through an international jury and the additional “Public” as well as “Foundation Suisa” awards were granted.

On Saturday, next to the award ceremony, workshops and panels took place too to which I unfortunately didn’t make it. I actually didn’t really have the energy for such an event on this weekend, but I still went. And the main thing was the concerts of course. With such a big choice of even to me mostly unknown bands and musicians, it wasn’t that easy to decide what to go to listen.

Well, the locations are all close to each other, so you simply could have seen parts of the shows. But eww, that would have been rather exhausting. 😉 Besides many concerts were taking place rather late. To have an all-night-party was, at least on this weekend, no option 😉

I went to see four acts – two known and two new ones.

The concerts

On Friday Make Plain and John Gailo were playing at ISC Club as well as The Souls at Dachstock. Usually I forgo Reitschule. Generally I think it’s quite annoying there and I don’t feel too comfortable. Even there are really great concert locations in there. Especially Dachstock is super nice. The Souls of course were a MUST. I can’t go to an event and not see their concert there. Just not possible 😉

The Sows took about 45-60 mins each. So they were rather showcases than complete concerts.

Make Plain

My Friday evening first started with the Ticino duo Make Plain. Make Plain are Luca and Andrea. One played the keys, guitar, cajon and drums, the other one acoustic and e-guitar. They started making music together in 2011 and since have released 2 albums – their debut album “Make It Plain” in 2013 and “Side Street” in 2016. Their songs are in the genres folk, country and blues.

The two of them mainly played covers as “Waggon Wheel” by Bob Dylan, “Lady d’Arbanville” by Cat Stevens or also the wonderful instrumental version of “Amazing Grace”. I admit I didn’t know most of the songs… so if there were some own ones among the few songs, I honestly can’t tell. Haven’t really found out yet.

Nevertheless it was nice to listen to them. I especially liked the folky songs a lot.

John Gailo

John Gailo were very different. John Gailo are a 4 member rock band from Zurich. They already arrived in a very colorful band bus. With Leopard print leggings, golden shoes and white masks the band already looked especially interesting.

I knew about the band through their guitar player, I also know from Zibbz and Tobey Lucas and is also playing with Eluveitie. Though the single members weren’t really introduced by name, but each one just by John Gailo. Obviously none should know them 😉

… um, wait, have I mentioned too much already…?

Never mind, more important is the music.

I first weren’t sure, if I’d like them. On youtube I tended to it though. And yes, live it was even better. I though they are really cool. They not only have a woman in the front, who’s a really great singer, but I liked their song generally. John Gailo totally rocked, even you wouldn’t tell by the very restrained audience.

Yes, the whole event was maybe not exactly the way I was expecting it. The atmosphere etc didn’t really always match very well. Maybe I had the Honky Tonk too much in mind… well, shortly before John Gailo’s concert ended, I was off to Dachstock, where The Souls performed.

The Souls

Yes, Thun Band knowingly is one of my favourites and I of course couldn’t go to MUMA without seeing them. Because of them I actually knew about the event.

After I met a band member telling me, that they didn’t play well, it was obviously not just me that the concert of this evening wasn’t electrifying as much as before. But it really wasn’t that bad. 😉

With the EP release of 2015 in mind the expectations about the concert were maybe too high. It just can’t be topped. And somehow not too many known faces were in the audience. Next to the usual setslist as “Live” and the actual single “Move On”, to my joy they played “Run Baby Run”. And yes, I know the problem with bands preferably not wanting to play certain songs anymore…

ALL XS

After them ALL X were standing on stage. I honestly was only listening to them, because I was waiting for the night bus. The Bernese foursome isn’t my thing at all. They were too electronically and too monotone. I don’t know, I am sure very sensitive and picky about this 😉 Well, they just seemed to be a typical aftershow party act. Many electro and dancing fans seemed to have fun though.

Veronica Fusaro

I perferred Veronica Fusaro on Saturday evening a lot more. She was standing all alone on the big Dachstock stage with guitar, loop station and synthies, thrilling the audience with them and her voice. I like her and her pop songs. Though I indeed would like to see her with full band again. On her setlist of course were her new single “Better If I Go”. I especially loved her version of “Wayfaring stranger” on this evening again.

OneSentence.Supervisor

OneSentence.Supervisor performed directly after Veronica Fusaro downstairs at Rössli. Just from Dachstock down the stairs and you were already standing at the concert. Even before Veronica’s concert had ended, it was blaring from downstairs (very annoying!). Were people at Dachstock (about 800 person capacity) quite loosely, there was barely any getting through. They should have swapped the stages?!

If you were standing in the very back, you only could hear the blaring bass. I knew the Baden popband already and didn’t mean to go and listen to them, but tastes can change. But this way I couldn’t find out whether I might like them now.

Expectaions and MUMA favourite

My expectations of this music marathon weren’t exactly fullfilled. The seen concerts were mostly good and it was especially fun to see new bands. It definitively works and John Gailo were my favourite therefor. The vibes were mostly not very good though. And in the audience there often was too much talking. What’s making a big difference at a concert. But these were only a handfull of all the concerts. So still I can imagine to go again the next time – especially for discovering new bands.

As mentioned, the next Swiss Live Talents event is only taking part in two years. Until then still keep your ears open 😉

Infos about the music marathon you can find on swisslivetalents.ch

Bands:
Make Plain auf Facebook
www.johngailo.com
www.thesouls.ch
www.veronicafusaro.com