Day 4, Saturday August 27th

Theme Park, Main Stage, 4pm-4:40pm

Theme Park is a young British band, the three guys play a colourful indie-pop mixed with electronic sounds. The set is pretty short and there are not many people in front of the big scene yet because of the heat (again), despite that, the band manages to entertain the audience with its great tunes.

Wolfman, Tent Stage, 5pm-6pm

Wolfman is already well-known in the Swiss musical scene. The band creates dreamy melodies mixing electronic sounds and keyboard with some soft rock. The voice of the singer is beautiful and guides the audience through an alley patterned with sounds at times sad and thoughtful and at times joyful.

The band released a new record called Modern Age in May 2016.

Coasts, Main Stage, 6pm-7pm

This five-piece from Bristol released an eponymous debut album in January 2016. Coasts’ music is an indie-pop peppered with electronic sounds here and there. There’s something of a surf vibe in the band’s music.

There seem to be many band this year at Zürich Openair, and not only, which play this kind of music, an indie-pop mixed with some synth to create music that you can dance along too.

The Strumbellas, Tent Stage, 9pm-10pm

The Strumbellas are without any doubt one of the best surprises of the festival. The Canadian band with its 6 members hypnotizes the audience for an hour worth of indie-folk music. Among the band memberst, keyboardist Dave, who has already become a legend among fans.

The Strumbellas counts a charismatic frontman interacting with the public and really talented musicians. Violin, keys and guitars create a vibrant atmosphere on which the audience dances while singing along.

Very down to earth the band didn’t expect such a warm welcome for the first gig in Switzerland, but it is all well deserved! The band ends the gig with the hit song “Spirits”, for which the singer asks the audience to clap and sing along. Definitely one of those bands worth seeing live!

Kaiser Chiefs, Main Stage, 10:05pm-11:15pm

Kaiser Chiefs makes its entrance on stage, singer Ricky Wilson is the last one to come out… with grudges and a cast on his right leg. As soon as he gets in front, he drops the grudges, cheers the audience and starts singing.

His injury doesn’t keep him from jumping around and climbing over the amplifiers. Although towards the end of the gig he seems to feel more pain…

Kaiser Chiefs offers the audience a dynamic gig jumping from one tune to the next throughout the band’s many albums. Frontman Ricky Wilson is, as usual, great with the audience asking them to sing along, clap, dance and scream and claiming that if the public does so the band will play even better. The fans respond pretty well.

The band plays new songs such as “Parachutes”, more pop than the previous tunes and peppered with electronic sounds. The new album Stay Together, which will be released on the 7th of October 2016, seems definitely more influenced by contemporary pop music rather than indie-rock and alternative rock, as it was the case for the previous ones.

But during the gig the band still plays massive rock anthems like “Ruby” and “I Predict a Riot”, during the latter Ricky Wilson purposely spills water on the head of a security guy standing in front of the stage. As the song says… I predict a riot…

Zürich Openair for me ends with the image of some lightnings announcing a Summer storm during Underworld‘s concert. It’s been a great few days filled with music, sun and happiness. A memorable way to end the big Summer Festival season that, as every year, was pretty long and intense! See you next year! 🙂

Simona @TakeMe2aConcert