Triggerfinger at Bierhübeli Bern

At short notice I won some tickets for the Triggerfinger concert at Bierhübeli Bern by bäckstage.ch and was very curious, how that will be. So far I only knew “I Follow Rivers” and with this song I believed, I might like it. Uh oh. On the way to the concert I quickly listened to some of their songs on spotify and already thought, that this band probably will rock more than expected from the one song. These thoughts were definitively not wrong.

At 7pm the doors opened, I got my ticket at the box office and after I took my coat to the wardrobe, entrance to the hall was allowed and… it was empty. A handfull of people were standing at the bar in the foyer, but next to them there were only few employees there. With this situation one could sure be a bit overstrained, if you usually “fight” for your spot and arrive extra early. thihi 😉 And the hall got filled only slowely. It obviously wasn’t sold out and the balcony restricted. But it was quite well filled then. I was told before the concert, that at Gurtenfestival many people were very surprised and even shocked, some even left, because they somehow also thought they’d ended up at the wrong band. Of course, überhits as “I follow rivers” mostly get played towards the end or at the end. At this point I couldn’t really imagine what to expect…

Birth Of Joy
Birth Of Joy

At 8pm the three-man supporting act started – Birth of Joy. A rockband from the Netherlands. Frontsinger Kevin came hobbling on stage with crutches. He obvioiusly broke his foot on tour. But this was apparently very much rock’n’roll. 😉 Drummer and keyboards player followed him. Who thought this broken foot affected anything of the show, is wrong. With their blues-psychadelic rock sound they played a very energic concert and heated up the audience. Even though Mr Leadsinger had to sit. The audience were a bit reserved with the support, but with some you could see the pleasure for the band.

Video Birth Of Joy | Galerie Birth Of Joy

After 9.14pm I became a little nervous. Umm the gentlemen Triggerfinger could slowly but surely start. But quited exactly on the second I was given the countdown. Hehe. Singer, Ruben, I immediately recognized. With the grey hair and beard, in the black suit – he already passed me after admission. Bass player Paul entered stage in a pinstripe suit and with black sun glasses, drummer Mario got up on his stool with a huge grin and a blue-white-black stripped suit on and let his hips rotate as well as the tongue. And then they started with “Black Panic”… this was solid rock. And this ain’t really got anything in common with “I follow rivers”, the nice soft ballade. One rock song after the other followed “On My Knees”, “My Baby’s Got A Gun” – there was no soft rock. I was warned, but this I didn’t really imagine before. In between it was a bit too much for me, but in general this was a super great concert. The three Belgian are so crazy – dancing and rocking over the stage like no one else, are grimacing, bawdy sometimes rather smirky scences were shown. There guitars, drumsticks and cymbals got licked. Esp. the drummer loved flirting with the audience.

Galerie: Triggerfinger
Video: Triggerfinger – Is it

Guitar and drum solos followed – compared to this the most I’ve seen so far, were barely worth mentioning. Mario was dripping of sweat, he was soaking wet. There I noticed this white-pink guitar and one after the other “WTF?” moment followed somehow ^^ Latest, when they asked people to dance during “All This Dancin’ Around” – “we only can see down to our nipples anyway. That’s your chance!” – the Bierhübeli rocked properly. And only after they returned again on stage for the encore, only then “I follow rivers” got played. And how this band came across this song, are real riddles to me. haha. Unbelievable. During the whole concert there probably was only 1 more slow, quite song. With all the others all hell was let loose.

So some songs were too much for me, the music of the supporting act was more of my taste at some point. But the whole concert in general was an experience. And I’d probably go see them again – favourably at a festival. I can imagine, that would be really good.