Reunion with Bjork and Nick Cave

First comes the food, then the music. This also applies in Montreux, this place of longing for fun society. During the pandemic years, the world-famous festival also had to pause or slim down its programming. Since last weekend, however, it has been attracting thousands of pilgrims to Lake Geneva again. Here they grow together to form an amorphous mass that slowly and laboriously winds its way across the lake promenade. However, not everyone wants to attend a concert here. Many are drawn to Montreux by the colorful crowds, the stalls and the street market. Others – galleries on two legs – flaunt their fascinating tattoos, their muscles or their blonde splendor.

However, what seems to unite everyone is hunger. “Argentino”, “Oriental”, “Switzerland”, “Pizza”, “Sushi”, “Indian” – the gastronomy in Montreux is at least as multicultural as the music or the audience. Meanwhile, the queues in front of the food stands slow down pedestrian traffic towards the congress center considerably. One almost believes one has to fight for progress.

Doberman or Greyhound

When you’ve got yourself a beer and a curry, instead of a table with a view of the lake, you’ll only find a free spot on the pavement. From the curb you can see mainly legs, calves, sneakers. And at some point a mutt walks by. With a contemptuous look he stares now at the curry, now at the person who is squatting on the floor and eating his food between butts and empty cans.

The four-legged friend made an impression. Anyway, late on Saturday night Nick Cave amazingly reminded Stravinski of a dog in the sold-out Auditorium. When he strides out onto the stage at the beginning of the concert – out to the far right and then across to the left – his animalistic presence suggests a Doberman pinscher or even a greyhound patrolling his territory.

And immediately he begins to bark angrily. The start is awesome! “Get Ready For Love,” barks the 64-year-old Australian in a dark gray suit; He wears the collar of his white shirt open, as if it had burst. And the Bad Seeds, his excellent band with bandleader Warren Ellis, provide rocking high pressure and powerful dynamic meanders in the first track. In the second, the tough pace remains, but the tone changes: “There She Goes, My Beautiful World” is now about frustration.

In doing so, Nick Cave specified an emotional fall height and an emotional spectrum, which he then mostly paints in dark colors. In “From Her To Eternity” and later in “Tupelo” he portrays himself as a poor devil who whimpers and screams against fate. It puts so much strain on the vocal cords that one expects hoarseness soon.

But in time he changes style. Just a rabble roused by minimal rock motifs, Nick Cave now convinces as a fervent crooner. He strikes sad chords on the piano to set the scene in heart-rending elegies, supported only by a gospel vocal trio. The mood is getting serious, it’s about death and loss. And when the singer in “I Need You” apparently begs the dying son to breathe, keep breathing, it would actually make you cry.

Alone, the audience remains relaxed and excited. There’s an explanation for that: Anyone who, like Nick Cave, pushes the expressive extremes is always on the verge of parody. The singer convinces with killer ballads and black humor. But for a cathartic drama the dimension of expressive depth is missing. In any case, on this evening one has the impression that the artist is trying to prevent too much devotion and offers all the more musical spectacle and meets irony.

The calculation doesn’t quite work out, the tension diminishes over time. As a listener you already have a conscience because you start to get bored with the constantly similar gestures, poses and dynamic contrasts, so Nick Cave provides a worthy conclusion to his performance with encores like “Into My Arms”.

swan or cat

The next day, the Icelandic singer Björk, who is accompanied by the Sinfonietta de Lausanne, takes the stage in the Stravinski Auditorium, which is once again full. And it is designed so extravagantly that you have to think of the animal world. Björk has nothing to do with dogs. The white angel’s robe, which flows over a wide crinoline, is more reminiscent of a swan. And when she swims through foaming sound baths for ninety minutes, the apparition finds its musical equivalent.

Her wide mask, but above all her singing, is reminiscent of a cat that cannot decide between flattering coquetry and anxious distance towards its fans. Bjork would be a special one, though, a Puss in Boots who masterfully nuanced her meow-meow. In the 1990s, the Icelander influenced the development of pop in a style-forming way by combining exalted melody with original techno beats. When the Icelander now performs with a string orchestra, she omits a crucial element of her own style.

The adventure was greeted with a lot of goodwill and partial enthusiasm by their fans in Montreux. Here, however, we represent the minority that can’t get started with “Björk meets classic”. Björk himself is vocally in good shape, and the string arrangements come up with melting and lush sound effects that would be enough for a song or two. But in the concert dramaturgy one misses the structures that could tame Björk’s vocal rococo, and the rhythmic rigor that would bind the ornate melody to a concise form.

The orchestra parts now always follow the balladesque movements of the singer, they fail to become tonal debris. The concert looks like a never-ending recitative, in whose leveling pull hits like “Come To Me” or “Joga” also get caught. You have to wait fifty minutes for the cellos in «Hunter» to claim the right to a flamenco rhythm. And after another ten minutes, the climax follows in the melodramatic «Bachelorette», because the classics are finally grooving in a pop style.

The coda

The Montreux Jazz Festival may be known for its glamorous veterans and legendary idols. From time to time you also have the less prominent talents to thank for surprises and highlights. On Saturday, supporting Nick Cave, Emilie Zoé thrilled with a gripping set. Accompanied by only one drummer, the French-speaking Swiss made a name for herself as an extremely versatile musician. As a keyboarder and guitarist, but above all as a self-confident singer, she created a suspense from lyrical folk to monumental hard rock outpourings.