All That Jazz
This entry was originally posted at Homogenized and later merged into Neckbeard. Images and links may be broken. Sorry.
The Montreux Jazz Festival seems to be a jazz festival only in name. The two week festival features over one hundred acts on its three main stages, and countless others in the “Montreux Under the Sky” venues. The Under the Sky stages are all outdoors and all completely free of charge. Out of the hundreds of artists, I heard maybe 4 that were real, honest-to-God jazz in the four days I spent in Montreux.
But no worry. Though I love the few jazz artists that I consistently listen to, rock is really my bag. And there was definitly no shortage of that. One of the most entertaining was some sort of Francophone rockabilly-punk band. I’ve always thought about punk as a uniquely American and English style of music, but this band managed to put more energy and entertainment into their show than I imagine most contemporary American “punk” ever would. And despite playing to a crowd that, for the most part, had never heard a single one of their riffs, they got a bigger ovation than several indie rock bands do from their devoted fans that fork over $15+service charges. And a hell of a lot more dancing too. Perhaps that says something more about the state of the American music scene than that of the Swiss, but I found it interesting regardless.
Apart from the music is the party. Several kilometers of the lakefront of Lac Leman become home to a huge mass of jewelry booths, t-shirt stands, tattoo parlours (yes, tattoo parlours) and food (including sushi). Basically, the entire waterfront becomes a huge street fair/block party. The entire event just feels alive, which is definitely more than I can say for the American summer festival scene, which are either so far away from civilization that you have no choice but to bend over and take it from the festival organizers, so restrictive that you are not allowed to leave the venue for the duration (which can be upwards of 10 hours) or both like the Coachella festival, a thoroughly disatisfying event despite having one of the best line-ups I’ve ever seen.
More dispatches re: Europe to come later.
