Tu, 12.04.11 |
We, 13.04.11 |
Th, 14.04.11 |
Fr, 15.04.11 |
Sa, 16.04.11Tuesday, 12.04.2011
What an amazing beginning to Zermatt Unplugged yesterday evening in the largest Swiss marquee in Switzerland at the foot of the most famous mountain in the Alps: The first singer of the long night of music opened the fourth edition of Zermatt Unplugged with the simple sentence “My name is Roger Hodgson” - and earned hearty laughter from the large audience. THE Voice of Supertramp, who is as much a part of the music scene as the Matterhorn is of the Alps, really needed no introduction.
Hodgson sang “Give a little bit” right at the beginning of the show – and for more than two hours gave all his warmth and affection to his 1,500 listeners in particular and Switzerland in general. “You have a beautiful country, ‘gratulations, take care,” called out the Brit, who nowadays lives in California, into the night in his inimitable voice. THE voice that had left its mark on Supertramp, immortalized on records sold 60 million times, and that came across as freshly in the marquee as if he’d only written the songs last week. The 61-year-old Roger Hodgson only needed to play the first chord of a song for the audience to know exactly what would follow: “Take the long way home”, “Dreamer” or “The Logical Song”, for example. And, of course, he couldn’t leave out “It's raining again” or “Take a look at my Girlfriend” – pop ballads that were part and parcel of the mostly middle-aged festival-goers’ youth, who would probably have liked to exclaim “Take a look at this man” – as lithe and lissom as ever, with shoulder-length hair, a virtuoso musician on both keys and strings. The Canadian sax player Aaron McDonald also did his bit to make Supertramp unplugged a uniquely successful start to the festival.
Meanwhile, Naturally 7 were warming up backstage at the Vernissage. The rather different New Yorker boy group around front man Rod Eldridge had already warmed up in the afternoon in Zermatt, singing spontaneously in the lanes of the alpine village, followed by astonished tourists and locals. The seven Rhythm & Blues singers then entertained the audience until late into the night with their a capella songs in the style they call “Vocal Play”: Naturally 7’s voices are also trumpet, double bass, percussion and guitar. Their performance made Montreux Jazz Festival founder Claude Nobs so enthusiastic that he climbed onto the stage with his harmonica and enriched the band-without-a-band with a one-off instrumental performance. Let’s have more like this! It all starts again this afternoon from one o’clock on the nine stages of Zermatt Unplugged. From the Blue Lounge on Blauherd to the Mont Cervin Palace in the centre of the village.
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