Was there acutally any positive press feedback about Zurich Openair (ZOA)? I think, I haven’t read any. Called “city openair”, too expensive, line-up not good enough, too many DJs and visitors mainly sat in the dance tent. An openair on a huge area, with tons of food stands and bars, a camping site, close to the airport. You kept seeing planes going up into the sky. I’ve listened to some new bands and seen concerts, I liked. But festival atmosphere like at Gurten or even at smaller festivals like Summerdays or Etziken Openair wasn’t really there.
Well, I went this year on Thursday and Sunday. On the one site I wasn’t too interested in the line up for going 4 days and paying CHf 92 a day, on the other side I don’t like the festival that much. It feels rather cold and with only little visitors it was quite empty.
THURSDAY
In interviews it was highly announced, that everything was going to be ready and admission in time. Not that it was really bad, but I had to laugh when amission got delayed and they even had to put up the entrance tag.
Baba Shrimps opened the openair on blue stage, the main stage. Thursday afternoon on 4 pm. The weather was amazing. Proper summer. But as much of an honor it might be to open such an openair on main stage, it rather seemed a little ungreatful. The area was about empty. There was probably more staff than festival visitors. The view of the HUGE stage on this big place was on the one side impressive, but with the small audience a little bit irritating.
Good-humoured Baba Shrimps started their show with “Trouble” and played next to known songs as “Europe” and “All The City Lights”, even a new version of their actual single “Back To Where The Light Is”. Exciting! I wouldn’t call myself a fan of remixes, but this sounded good, war pretty cool. One should relax, to let oneself go, doing some dancing, front guy Adrian animated the audience. And they went along. I hadn’t seen Baba Shrimps for 1,5 months and on this afternoon it was esp. a lot of fun. Drums and guitare solos, the remix of “Back To Where The Light Is” and generally… but with 45mins the concert was way too short.
And there wasn’t even time for encores, because right after them it continued with Rival Kings on tent stage. Quckly I ran over. And they were just starting. In the meantime some more visitors had found their way to the festival. The atmosphere in the tent was a bit strange though. There was a huge press pit between barrier and stage, and the audience was standing away from it another 2-3 metres. People took some time to get into it. The stage setting, the lightshow, the songs – it was even in the early evening wonderful and I kept getting goosebumps, esp. with songs as “Light” or “On The Run”. And “Citizens” is just fun – “So where do we go from here?”
The four member Belgique electro rockband Goose played as replacement for The 1975 on the mainstage, becuase they had to cancel their Swiss performance due the singer was ill. I would have loved to see 1975 live. Maybe even listening to “Robgers” live, what Undiscovered Soul have covered. And to see who they supported back then. Well, I didn’t like Goose. It was booming too much out of the speakers, seemed dark and were quite crazy – on and in front of the stage. I don’t mind crazy ones, but differently crazy. I prefered to listen to it from far and only with half an ear.
We tried The Goastt at the then then. The Goastt – short for The Gost of a Saber Tooth Tiger – are Sean Lennon (yes, right, son of John Lennon) and his girlfriend. Hippy rock or something similar. The one or other song I thought was ok. But somehow all very similar. my attention and my interest didn’t last for long. I was more interested in the food stands of the festival then.
Again a change to the mainstage. The first 1-2 songs of the British electro pop/indietronics band Metronomy sounded really good. That there was a woman on the drums, was great. But as quickly the excitment came, it was gone again. Because each band member had their lead parts in singing and kept changing instruments there was a lot of varity, but I wouldn’t want to see another concert by them. Somehow the whole concert was too monotonous and too similar sounding. The pink clouds as stage deco didn’t help much there.
Unfortunately I didn’t see any more on that day. Everyon was raving about paulo Nutini and I would have loved to see this Scottish guy live. But unfortunately was his concert too late. Didn’t work for me on that day.
SUNDAY
Sunday afternoon everyone was a bit sleepy and not so much awake yet. Everyone prefered to take it easy. Annakin, a Swiss singer from Baden, with genre trip hop, was just right. There were only 2-3 songs left I could listen and will have to go back some time.
The weather was completley opposite to Thursday. It wa raining and cold. There were some running around in summer dresses, but most came wearing wellys and thick scarfs for the openair. It was pretty stormy. Actually a real lazy tv day. What didn’t really help with the number of audience. The area was so empty on that day. Most who were there, escaped into the tent and didn’t move much anywhere else.
The suitable melancholy Kejnu brought, an indie rockband from Zurich. Among the few bands I didn’t know, this one was one I liked best. My review about the concert you can find on SwissMusicDiary.ch, exactly HERE.
After Kejnu I strode back to tent stage again. It’s been like that on Thursday already. The wandering masses. Looked funny. In the tent GLORIA were playing. From a bit further away I kept listening and was searching through ZOA app for them. I went closer to the stage then and squinted my eyes to sight. It was really Klaas Heufer-Umlauf standing there on stage as frontguy, the guy from the PRO7 show Circus Halli Galli. Got to say I liked the German indie rockband a lot. Great melodies and beautiful lyrics. I had seen Halli Galli before. It’s not my favourite shows and I was so surprised – this guy can even me “normal”.
The Danks soul and funk band The Asteroids Galaxy Tour followed on mainstage. The whole time they seemed familiar to me, esp. the lively, blonde singer in ther glitter tiger outfit. First she entered stage in raincoat and scarf. Not at all afraid of the rain and well equipped – very likable. But only with the one song I realized what band they were. Heard them tons of times on the radio, but still don’t know what the song’s called. The band went down well and every now and then, when it became quite, someone kept screaming “I love You” up on stage. Liked the band ok.
After I was listending to 1-2 songs of Sattelites Stories, a young finish indie rockband. But I went home then. I didn’t feel like staying any longer. It was cold and wet, and I had to finish my review for Swissmusicdiary.ch. Of course not without quickly going into starbucks at the airport. Yummie coffee to warm up. So the positive at Zurich Openair was, that I’ve seen som good performances and discovered new bands. But THE festival it’s sure not. There got to happen a lot first to really convince me.
