20h20-20h50: Wolfman

The opening act of this concert is Wolfman, a Swiss German duo. As the first notes start filling the room, it all becomes clear: they are going to take the audience on a trip into a parallel world. Their music is characterized by a great combination of electro sounds, guitars and keyboards. The drums are present in the background and rather than having a hard beat they have a delicate but constant one. This band creates an atmosphere such as The XX or James Brown can convey. It is special and makes you think that there is nothing else except the music in that moment.

 

21h25-22h25 HAIM

• When the clock strikes 21:25, the drummer and keyboardist of Haim enter the stage and start jamming together creating the right atmosphere for the three Haim sisters, to get on stage. They chose their own surname as the name of the band. Although having similar hairstyles, the three sisters are all dressed differently: Este, the blond sister who plays bass, is wearing a black dress; Danielle, the lead singer is wearing long trousers and a leather waistcoat and Alana, the guitarist seems to come straight from a LA beach, with a baggy t-shirt and shorts!

 

• How to describe Haim? It’s not an easy question, one thing we can be sure of is that they are certainly unconventional. The three sisters are really talented; they all sing and play multiple instruments, among which keyboards and the drums.
• For the first song “Falling”, Danielle starts singing with her unmistakable rhythmic voice, which finds itself in between R’n’B and rock, putting the accent on each word. As she sings the main verse, her sisters respond with the choir “I’m falling” and the echo of “Falling” resounds in the entire concert hall. When Este plays the bass it is a proper show to look at her because she makes funny grimaces with her mouth, which she probably does because she is concentrated. But don’t let her grimaces to distract you because she certainly knows how to play and sing!

 

• The next song they play is a cover that they usually enjoy jamming at their house in LA. To introduce it, Este tells the public: “Just pretend to be in LA for a minute will ya?.” To which the audience replies with over-joyed screams. The cover they play is pure old school rock and they get the audience jamming to these notes too! Este is the most talkative of the band, she tells the public that she wants to have a typical Swiss date and introducing the song with “Let’s do this shit.” is one of the typical American expressions she uses. “If I Could Change Your Mind” is full of great choruses alternating the voices of the three sisters. Their sound is not a hard rock n’ roll it rather seems to be a mix of rock n’roll, pop with a touch of soul in their choruses and some electro too! Their style has so many influences which makes it hard to describe it and this is why they are such a great and unusual band.

 

• “My Song 5” is introduced by Este, the bassist, as the song to which people at their concerts make babies, I’ll leave that to your imagination… This song truly makes you move your body and head to the alternating beats of the drums and the rattle. The guitar and bass riffs peep in halfway through the song, adding up on its intensity. At the end of the song Este comments with a “Zürich you’re so sexy!” which says it all, funny girls these sisters.

 

• “Days Are Gone” is one of the greatest songs live, enriched with multiple choruses which build up throughout the tune reaching their climax towards the end of it, when the line “Days are gone” is echoed by the sighed “haa”, joined in by the lines “All my love that I can’t hide, all my love now you can’t find it”. This creates an incredible and perhaps confused feeling for the fans’ ears, but it surely sounds amazing. Danielle frequently takes the chance to do some guitar solo during the concert, to keep her concentration she closes her eyes and picks the strings moving her head gently to the right and to the left.

 

• Before their encore, towards the end of the song “Forever”, Härterei is suddenly filled with a rainbow of colourful bits of paper falling on the fans’ heads, who are all feeling like happy children! The first song of their encore is their single “The Wire” where Este starts singing and is then followed by Alana and Danielle who sing one strophe each. It is great that they all get to sing, their voices are all pure and neat but creating each a different feeling on the listener! The last song they play is “Let Me Go”, with its powerful choruses and the guitar rhythm in the background. This song is topped towards the end with the three sisters banging the drums each has in front of herself building up the sound until they sound like a carnival band. That is a powerful thing! They choose to say goodbye with a climax: at the end they bang the drums so hard that their drumsticks are left flying in the air and they leave the stage. Despite the final climax the audience wouldn’t have minded for a few more songs to top this great concert.

Simona – @TakeMe2aConcert

Setlist:

• Falling
• If I Could Change Your Mind
• Oh Well
• Honey & I
• My Song 5
• Days Are Gone
• Don’t Save Me Forever

Encore:

• The Wire
• Let Me Go