You can feel it’s Friday night at Les Docks as the venue is very packed! People found shelter from the cold rainy night outside warming their hearts with some great Swiss music by JulDem and Pegasus!

8.30-9.20 JulDem

Valais singer and songwriter JulDem enchants the audience of Les Docks with his powerful voice and charismatic attitude. He is accompanied by his talented band composed by a guitarist, a bassist, a keyboarder and a drummer.

JulDem’s music ranges from soul to pop and is peppered with sprinkles of reggae and rap here and there. The sound is colourful and the lyrics are meaningful. JulDem interacts easily with the audience, making the public sing along. A very talented first act!

9.45pm-11.40pm Pegasus

Bienne band Pegasus puts Les Docks on fire, with their contagious good humour and energy. Their entrance on stage is accompanied by an electronic intro and they then start playing “Symptoms”, taken from their album Love & Gunfire (2014). Smartly dressed, the three-piece is composed by singer Noah Veraguth, bassist Gabriel Spahni and drummer Stefan Brenner. On tour, they are accompanied by the new-entry guitarist Martin Deplazes, and Gigi Wild on keyboards.

Their new album Beautiful Life was released in 2017 and singer Noah Veraguth tells the audience (in French) that they will play most of the tracks on the album. He also points out how beautiful it is playing Les Docks, they previously played in Lausanne at D!Club and Cave du Bleu Lézard but in front of less people.

Throughout the gig they play new songs taken from their last album, like “Frozen River”, the singer’s favourite, but which he claims is hard to play on stage. They nail it pretty well and the song has a nice flow! Another great new song to hear perform live is “God Knows”, a touching guitar ballad, where the singer can show off his pitch perfect falsetto and is backed up by the bassist in the refrain.

They make the audience jump along to the pop hit “Technology” taken from their album Human.Technology (2013), with the happy public throwing their hands in the air.

Half way through the song “Days of no Reply” the band comes down from the stage and joins the audience in the parterre, keeping on singing and playing among the audience. Noah Veraguth remains there to play a beautiful acoustic version of “Man on Mars” and telling football anecdotes to the audience. He then gets backstage while Gabriel and Stefan start an exciting and powerful drum battle on stage. The rest of the band then joins the stage to play the catchy pop song “Skyline”.

Pegasus creates many moments of togetherness by involving the audience in singing along to songs and constantly interacting with them.

For the encore, Gabriel Spahni takes to the piano on the left side of the stage and Noah Veraguth to the one on the right side of the stage. This time, surprisingly, the singer is Gabriel at least at the start of the song, because in this version of “Metropolitans” the two pianos and the two voices dialogue with each other to come together during the refrain. A special and very beautiful performance!

The singer presents the band members and he also says that Gabriel Spahni writes songs for other artists including one from Lausanne. And surprise surprise Noah Veraguth finds Stress on the side of the stage who joins them for an improvised version of “Elle”. Stress raps in French whereas Noah sings in English, the former doesn’t finish the song saying he forgot the words but it’s a fun moment nonetheless!

During “Last Night on Earth” the band tells the audience to party and scream as if it were their last night on this world. They end the gig with the majestic “I Take it All”, where the drums and the keyboards dictate the rhythm that the singer has to follow, and to which the audience sings along.

Highly acclaimed, Pegasus asks whether the public wants more, the answer is a screaming “yes”. So the band goes back to where it all started when Noah and Gabriel used to play rock‘n’roll covers from the fifties. A fantastic jump back in time! They then leave for good, leaving a smiley and very satisfied audience.

Setlist:

Symptoms
Fragments
Rise Up
Lost To Be Found
Frozen River
Technology
This World is not My Home
God Knows
Streets of My Hometown
Lay Low
Digital Kids
Days of no Reply
Man on Mars
Drum battle
Skyline
Metropolitans (encore)
Elle ft. Stress (encore)
Get Over You (encore)
Last Night on Earth (encore)
I Take it All (encore)

 

Simona @TakeMe2aConcert