Nickless in Lyss - PlanetSarah.ch

A friend took me along to Canal3 Soundcheck at Kufa Lyss on Saturday. She had won tickets for the Nickless concert. I was very much looking forward to see the band around Nic again. Their concerts are always super fun.

Canal3 often organises their soundcheck concerts with various bands. Give away tickets for. And on this Saturday evening Nickless performed. I’ve last seen the young band at Gurtenfestival. Summer, sun, Nickless and festival atmosphere – I already loved it back then. Even when Nic said, that it hand’t really been their best concert then. After many more festival concerts they are now again on clubtour with their debutalbum “Four Years”. They played the concert at the full Kufa club, in the small room of Kufa. Okay, honestly we have been feeling a little old in this young audience. Luckily there were some parents drawing the average age. But actually it doesn’t matter, cos we nevertheless have always fun. Nickless play great pop songs. Yes, lyrically maybe somehow kitschy, but just so so beautiful. If they sing about Blueberry eyes or being in the clouds… so esp. the female audience is worshipping the ground their walking on. But hey, frontguy Nicola Kneringer is a real multitalent, and so his band. But Nic seems just always to be in a good mood and always got something funny to say. That he had some troubles with his voice that evening, you barely noticed.

We’ve been surprised a little that there was a support act performing. We couldn’t remember that we’ve ever seen any support at a soundcheck show before. Bennie played ahead of them a handfull of songs as a duo with an e-guitare player. Bennie’s a young musician from Bern. I’ve seen her before as a support of Tobias Carshey in Thun, what’s already about 1,5 years ago though. She played calm songs and her voice sounds really good, very mature. And since I’ve heard her in Thun, she gained some experience for sure. You could hear it. Her own songs I liked better than the “Toxic” cover, she additionally played. So we would at least recognise one song, she explained. I am not sure though, if the audience knew or recognized the song. We’ve been quite racking our brains, if it was the Britney Spears song or one by someone else…. but “Toxic” is the song, when I stopped listening to Britney Spears. hehe.

Before Nickless entered the stage, the intro started. During the intro the audience got fired up and – suddendly everything was dark – blackout. Umm, not really, it was part of the show of course. A very original intro for sure, the audience not always gets immediately – but at Kufa it worked well. Franky on guitare, Flo on the drums and Andrea on bass followed Nickless on stage. They started their concert with “Marry Me”. Not only the band put a smile on your lips, you should have seen the beaming faces in the front rows. The sun was rising. The vibes in the audience were good. Nic was accompaigning himself mostly on guitare, but also put it away for “Frozen”. If Franky’s guitare wasn’t breaking down just then – luckily only til the end of the song – he wowed with great guitare riffs and even the part of Coldplay’s “Adventure of a lifetime”. Really genious! Nic proofed during the show with invincible drums and an imaginary ping-pong match with the audience his beatboxing skills. For “Are You Kidding Me?” he swapped places with Flo and really sat down behind the drums. And when he asked: “Are you ready?”, he actually was talking to his band, but the audience was for sure. For the beautiful ballad “Tears” he sat down behind the keys before he returned to the guitare again.

The setlist included wonderful ballads and catchy melodies, that are stuck in your ears for days without becoming annoying (ok, that’s relative haha). Real great popsongs. With “Poor Heart” they then didn’t only play a song that is not available on CD but only live, but was also the last song of the evneing. Of course they couldn’t just leave without any encore. So they thrilled the audience again with “Clouds”, and their hit “Waiting” couldn’t be missed either of course. And before they left the stage, I even got pressed a plec into my hand. This, plus the signed setlist, is just better than any merch of the world!

What a great evening! And I already can’t wait to see Nickless in January at Touch The Mountains.