Asher Roth live is just like the Asher Roth I had imagined. I’m so happy that Just Because brought him to Mascotte last Friday. It was the perfect start to the weekend. To the peeps who weren’t there you deffo missed a party! 🙂
Let’s start the party
At 8.20 Asher Roth came on stage. He didn’t need a support act warming up the crowd because we were ready. But let me tell you I really didn’t expect this. As soon as the first beats came blasting out Asher said hello to us. Not just a wave, no. He came down to us and shook everyone’s hands or fist pumped us. I loved it. So cool. He started with his first mix tape and some people already knew the songs but most of us were still a bit shy.
However one guy was already very drunk and kept shouting Asher I want your shoes! And poor him he had to tell him I’m sorry they are my only shoes! LOL someone else threw him other shoes on stage and it was quite a marry go round of shoes. Super funny and very spontaneous. The best!
Asleep in the bread aisle
Celebrating the 10 year anniversary of asleep in the bread aisle is what got him here and it showed. Almost everyone knew the songs of the album and mega Uber party hit “I love college” was performed. Of course people went crazy for it. Another unexpected thing Asher Roth did is actually throwing us bread 🙂 and it wasn’t just any bread it was “Tessinerbrot” 😀 Yummy! So I hope the people that caught it didn’t have any dinner and could eat the bread. It’s super funny if you see bread crumbs on the floor instead of confetti!! I was hoping he would sing/rap “She don’t wanna man” but oh well you can’t have everything. It’s a reason for Asher Roth to come back!
However Mascotte and Asher Roth rapped together “La Di Da”, “Gotta Get Up” and “Blunt Cruisin'” which concluded the Asleep in the Bread section.
The journey continues
After each song he would share the story behind it and if you know my blog you know I love that! He would tell us that he moved from one place to the next and obviously inspiration must have hit him. With the crowd getting more rowdy the atmosphere got even better. People danced, drank, rapped and enjoyed themselves. At one point Asher got the boys together and then he started crowdsurfing. It was so much fun to watch and I’m happy he picked the strong boys to carry him.
With “Party Girl” the college atmosphere was back. It was so much fun and I loved looking into the happy faces of everyone! Quite towards the end Asher split up the audience and we formed a “Crazy pit”. Everyone shouted “Do something crazy” with Asher (and me) sitting on the boxes watching. We had a few brave Swissies who did quite well. When no-one danced in the middle anymore Asher Roth walked into it and everyone hugged him and jumped up and down. A huge hugging mosh pit 😀
Saying Goodbye
After a bit more than an hour it was time to say goodbye. It felt like we partied for hours: Jumping up and down, singing, dancing, rapping, crowd surfing, laughing. With the words be patient and be kind Asher Roth said Goodbye and shook everyone’s hands again. We all were sweaty and happy and ready for the weekend. And of course Asher Roth came back out to meet his fans, talk, sign stuff and take pics.
Asher Roth is a super friendly cool talented rapper who knows what he’s doing. He’s in for the music and not for the money and that’s what I love about him, his music and his gigs. Everyone who went to his gig loved it and will be back! If you don’t know Asher Roth you gotta check him out right now 🙂
When Metallica announced that they’d be playing in Zurich at Letzigrund I knew I had to try and see them. They are just Legends which you have to see at least once. Last night with their Worldwired tour they started the openair concert season with a bang. 45 000 people were coming to see their favourite band and almost all of them showed up in the right merch!
When the ticket prices were announced I knew I had to try to pull a Guns ‘N Roses again. Luckily a friend of mine from a fellow blog called Bäckstage helped me out a lot and landed me a front of stage ticket! Which meant that I was super close to the stage and saw how Metallica interacted with their fans. Let me tell you I thought they were super cute. Not a word I thought I would use to describe Metallica haha But they really were. All of them were actually looking at us, talking and miming stuff. It was just really cool to see.
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
Just after 8 Ennio Morricone’s “Ecstasy of Gold” started to ring around the Letzigrund and the huge screnes showed some scenes from the movie. The amosphere was already great with the 95% male voices singing to the score. The four guys – James Hetfield, Lars Ulrich, Kirk Hammett and Robert Trujillo – stepped on stage to perform the title track “Hardwired” of their newest record. I was fascinated. Kirk and Robert walked around the whole stage and said hello to the front rows. But what struck me the most is that you could actually feel the music in your stomache! It’s like loud fireworks 😀 Because it was so loud your whole body experienced the music in a different way. I loved it!
“The Memory Remains”, “Disposable Heroes” and “The Thing that should not be” followed. Moshpits were formed and the guys in there were having a blast. What I love about these rock concerts is that the people are so friendly. Everyone is having a good time! Plus you actually have space to enjoy the gig. After the first few songs I realised that Metallica isn’t really my music. However you have to appreciate them as musicians! The way they play their instruments is just outstanding and hello James’ voice is incredible. Even the way he said Zurich was super sexy! hahaha The women who preferred to be at the Enrique Iglesias gig deffo missed out on this 😀
Metallica gives you heavy
“The Unforgiven” and “Not that we’re dead” was next. But I really enjoyed “Moth into Flame”. Metallica actually brought the fire out! They had a moving fire on stage and then some huge flames came out on top of it too. I wasn’t cold but it was still nice of them to warm us up a bit lol After this James addressed the audience:
Do you like your music heavy? – A big roar from the crowd
Do you like your music heavy now? – even louder roar
Metallica gives you heavy now!
And with that they played “Sad but True” and “No Leaf Clover”. Metallica wanted to honour some local music by a Swiss band called Celtic Frost. Kirk and Rob did their thing with “The Unsurper”, “ManUNkind” and “Orion”. I quite liked “Frantic” the guitar riffs were brill on that. I think it must be one of the less heavy ones haha
Both “Frantic” and “One” had amazing laser shows throughout the whole stadium. It was so fascinating to watch! I really loved the atmosphere. The lovely people having fun listening to great music with a brill show! If you want to see some highlight check out my IG account. But the atmosphere got even better when they played some older songs. The crowd sang along to “Master of Puppets” and the devil signs were up.
The end fireworks
For the next two songs “For whom the bell tolls” and “Creeping Death” Lars – the drummer – took place at the end of the snake pit stage so he could be a bit closer to the action as well. All four of them together performed the songs there and very fitting some light rain came down. To me it was just perfect and no-one around me was actually bothered by it haha Another one of their hits “Seek & Destroy” followed and was met by a loud roar and the guys sang along. The two hours flew by and I didn’t even realise it but it was time for the guys to play the encore game.
With “Lords of Summer” Metallica came back and rocked Zurich in front of their LED screen showing the Swiss flag. I was actually wondering if the windows on the buildings around the stadium were vibrating! They must have been haha And finally, the song I personally have been waiting for came. The long intro played beautifully by Kirk already gave me goosebumps. When James’ voice set it I couldn’t believe how lucky I was to witness this special moment. “Nothing Else Matters” – what a song! If it was up to me they could have repeated it straight away! But all good things must come to end and they finished their 2hrs and 30 mins set with “Enter Sandman” and huge fireworks. After the last chords were played Lars said that 35 years ago they played their first gig in Europe in Zurich at Volkshaus supporting Venom. So they were extremely grateful to the Metallica Family who keeps coming to shows and support them living their dream and with that they started to throw buckloads of guitar picks into the audience. Some were even specialised for the Zurich gig with the date and the Grossmünster backdropped by the Swiss flag in typical Metallica style.
Metallica rocked Zurich. It was fascinating to see the brilliant musicians in action including their impressive WorldWired show with laser, fire and fireworks. But what I liked most is how they treated their fans as family and how down-to-earth these legends were.
Kekoas Korner got to travel to Basel to see Mumford and Sons at St. Jakobshalle on Sunday. I’ve never been to the venue and I have never seen them live so I was pretty excited. I heard only great things about their live performances and I’ve seen them on TV a few times so I was expecting a lot. Surprisingly the stage on the Delta Tour was set in the middle of venue which I already liked. So here’s a little more how the evening went:
Gang of Youths got the moves
The support act Gang of Youths is an Australian indie rock band from Sydney. Unfortunately I was quite distracted because I couldn’t find my phone and I thought I’d lost it. However, silly me, I put in my boots just minutes ago – which I always do when I have my boots on but I completely forgot. So the first 3 songs were kind of a blur. After huge waves of relief were flooding through me I could finally focus on Gang of Youths. Oh boy, David – the lead singer – can dance. Those moving hips were another distraction. He looked like the dancers on Let’s Dance Germany haha
So yeah I’d say the lads were quite entertaining but I couldn’t find a way to their music. But I saw so many loving their music which was really nice to see because they totally deserved it 🙂 They gave their best for us and deserved all the credit they got.
Mumford and Sons Little Lion Man
After a 40mins break and little quarrel with some very rude people around me the lights went dark. Honestly some people just don’t know how to behave at a gig. If you are late, you are late and squeezing yourself in little space not minding others people’s space is not OK. Especially if they don’t even know/care that they are in the wrong and call you names. I was pretty close to calling security. So that was that. Again it was real hard to focus on the actually nice evening with good music.
Mumford and Sons started with a ballade “Guiding Light” into the evening. A very pretty song from the new record Delta. But it was “Little Lion Man” that took my heart. Hearing the song live was so special. The four lads and their amazing band performed it brilliantly and it was over waay too quickly. “Holland Road”, “The Cave”, “Beloved”, “Lover of the light”, “Tompkins Square Park” followed. After a while I realised that Marcus – the lead singer – never really interacted with the other three guys in the band. He never played with them or talked to them and he was always on the other side of the stage. This might have been because the stage was in the middle so they wanted to keep all the fans happy and switch sides. But to me it kinda interrupted the band play which I thought was such a pity.
Let’s talk footy!
A very beautiful highlight of the evening was the song “Believe” during which the whole venue got their lights out. It looks incredible because the lights were all around the stage with the band in the middle. Marcus then talked about footy. Now we’re talking! 😀 However I quickly realised that all of them support the wrong teams haha He mentioned that Arsenal and the Mancs had a pretty bad day both drew that day and that only the Chelsea supporter had a good day with them winning 3-0 at home. He then realised that he’s in Switzerland and most of us don’t have a clue what he’s actually talking about. But anyways why he was telling us this is that basically almost all of their songs are about football! Who knew! 😀
During “Ditmas” Marcus came off stage and ran across the venue – way up top to the cheap seats and back down again. A party through and through. “Slip Away” and “Picture you” were next. Now I really loved “Darkness Visible”. Suddenly the stage was filled with thick smoke and laser lights were used to showcase the flow of the smoke. It looked incredible! The creative director of the tour did an amazing job here! “The Wolf” was the last song before the band left the stage for the encore after just around an hour.
Back to the roots
The four boys came back on stage and gathered around a mic. With one guitar and four voices they performed “Cold Arms”, “White blank page” and “Forever”. It was beautiful! The harmonies and the voices matched perfectly and Mumford and Sons can deffo do slow songs. After this the whole band and Gang of Youths came back on stage to perform a Middle East cover called “Blood”. It was full of energy and a moment to remember. “Awake my Soul” followed this cool moment before the band brought out their banjos again. The folk was back with “I Will Wait”. The band’s Uber hit and literally everyone was standing now and singing along and dancing a lot to this song. With the title track to their new record “Delta” they said Goodbye.
Mumford and Sons changed their music over the years and the folky part got a little lost. The part that I loved. Compared to what I’ve heard and what I saw on TV I was expecting a little more however I spoke to many fans and they did love the show. The four british lads are super talented musicians and I am hoping that they will go back to their roots a bit.
A week ago I published the New Music post about Jack Savoretti where I told you guys that I’d be so excited to see him play and I was very curious. Well fast forward a week and here we are at Volkshaus in front row waiting to see if Jack Savoretti would fullfil my expectations. But I might have been even more excited to see his support act called Ward Thomas.
Ward Thomas – Voices from heaven
At 7.30 the two sisters Lizzie and Catherine took the stage accompanied by their two musicians. I saw the two girls at the C2C Songwriter Sessions in London and I fell in love with their voices. Unfortunately they only performed one song “Cartwheels” because they were actually just surprise guests winning the CMA Jeff Walker Global Artist Achievement Award! How cool is that?!
With “Carry you home” Ward Thomas took Zurich by storm. We fell in love with their angelic voices and their incredible harmonies. For the people who didn’t know them it was a wow moment and for me it was “Yes, come on girls! Show’em what you got!” 😀 They got a nice applause and my friends and I were already wooping haha “It’s not just me” and “Little Girl Sorrow” were next. The country vibe was full on and our country hearts were beating fast. And yes, finally, they performed “Cartwheels” where I was singing along! I loved that song!
“I Believe in you” followed my highlight of the evening and I was like please do not stop singing lol The applause grew and you could hear more wooping! They introduced “No Filter” as the song that got the ball rolling for them. It’s about modern day social media and everything that comes with it. Another amazing song! After 30 mins it was again time to say Goodbye with a fitting song called “One More Goodbye”. Now I can safely say Switzerland is ready for a full Ward Thomas show. So Lizzie and Catherine please come back with a headlining show! 🙂
A smooth start to the evening
With “Candlelight” a ballade from the new record Jack Savoretti opened the night. Like I already said it sounds sooo Italian balladesque haha and I think with this quiet start lots of die-hard fans were a bit surprised. “Love is on the line”, “Dying for your love”, “When we were lovers” followed. By then I knew I loved Jack Savoretti’s voice, I loved his moves, I loved his good mood and his smile. It’s pretty difficult to describe but if an artists makes you feel welcomed and happy and making you enjoy his music even though you don’t know the lyrics he or she or they already won me over! That’s exactly what happened with Jack Savoretti. 🙂
What I always love about concerts it’s when you get to know the artist a little. In this case Jack joked about only writing songs about love and women but hey if you do it that well so why not. He also pretty much dissed his wife and we were like hold on that’s not nice but we needed to wait for him to come full circle. She accepted his lowest moments (which he’s got a lot of) but then at one point his wife showed her lowest point and he had to learn to love and accept her. But they stood their ground and they are more in love than ever! He made us laugh and introduced the next song with the following words:
I love the shit! Fuck the good stuff!
“Sweet Hurt”, “Better off without me” and “What more can I do” finished off the first part of the set.
Breaking it down
Jack Savoretti sent the 5 piece band off stage now to break it down to just his voice and a very old piano. He told us that he got it for 500 pounds which is super cheap for a piano… Especially for us who spend 400 francs just for shoes 😀 Jack lived in Switzerland for 10 years so he totally gets us haha But what he was actually getting at is that being Italian he used to go to church and confess and then he’s good. At confessions you are talking to a priest but actually you just talking to a piece of wood and to yourself so when he sits in front of that piano he is doing exactly that. On Monday night we were part of his confession singing “Things I thought I’d Never Do”.
Definitely a highlight of the night followed. Jack Savoretti invited Ward Thomas back on stage to sing a cover of the beautiful song “Human”. It was magic! If you want to see for yourself have a look at my highlights on Instagram. He was about to introduce his next acoustic song when suddenly people started shouting. Unfortunately someone fainted and Jack reacted quickly stopped everything, asked for water and security. This is pure professionalism. He left the stage so that people could focus on that person. How do you come back from this? After the situation got sorted he came back and said that people needed to focus on this first. With that being said they could move on to sing “Soldier Eyes”. As a trio Jack and Co. sang “Catapult” which was a beautiful way to end the acoustic set.
We were ready to dance!
The dancing shoes came out when Jack Savoretti played his biggest hit “Home! Everyone was singing along and was dancing. Even some people on the balcony stood up shyly and danced. The party started… But the Swiss audience didn’t always know the lyrics. When Jack tried to hear the audience sing it was quiet and with a laugh he kept singing. It was such a funny moment! “Tie Me Down”, “Touchy Situation” and “Youth and Love” were next. Slowly slowly the dancing shoes were on and the almost sold out Volkshaus partied.
😀 Another hilarious story we got to be part of is when someone from the audience shouted “Crazy Fool”. I didn’t even understand it but Jack Savoretti somehow did. He kinda mocked the person saying that he loved the way he said it in a Swiss German way. He repeated it and I was nearly on the floor laughing!! 😀 “Other side of love”, “Greatest Mistake”, “Written in the Scars/Knock Knock” and “Back where I belong” followed. By now I fell in love with his bubbly personality and Jack Savoretti’s raspy voice. After nearly two hours it was time to say goodbye again… But of course Jack loves Switzerland and will be back soon but before that we still had two songs left.
The Encore
Again Jack was alone on stage and started to explain why his new 6th record is called “Singing to Strangers”. He said:
“When friends of my daughter would ask her why is your daddy coming and going all the time? I imagined her saying – I don’t know – he’s a super hero but she went: My Daddy is travelling around the world singing to strangers!”
A big “Awww” went through the audience. Jack went on to say you arrived here today as strangers but now you leave as friends and with that he started to sing “Singing to Strangers”. For the last song he brought all the musicians and Ward Thomas back on stage. After a really cool gig Jack Savoretti and Co. left us with a super amazing rendition of “Going Home”. All the feels I’m tell ya!
Jack Savoretti met my expectations easily! To Sum up the evening was a great mix of slow, acoustic and up-tempo songs and lovely stories and a great voice with amazing musicians. I will deffo be back and I hope we get to hear more of the support Ward Thomas! 🙂
Are you a fan of indie rock? Yes? Then you’ll love Ten Tonnes. This lovely lad from England started out in pubs and slowly making his way across Europe now. Before his performance at this year’s RADAR Festival I got to speak with Ten Tonnes about his debut record, his relationship with his famous brother and Bob Ross!
I gotta ask Ten Tonnes is a super special name. I read somewhere that you came up with it while you did open mic shows and you wanted to have a name that no-one else has. But that doesn’t really answer where it came from, does it? 🙂
I don’t actually know where it came from. It just came out of no-where. I wish I had a better explanation than that! 🙂 I was at the pub and it came out of thin air. I’m sorry it’s not really a satisfying answer! *laughs*
*laughing too* It’s OK. It is what it is! Annie Mac just named Lucy „Hottest record of the world“. That’s such a huge honour. How does it feel when your music get recognized like this?
It’s amazing! At the moment it feels like loads of people are checking out my music which is amazing. You want to hear people saying it’s possible so when it happens it’s great. A lot of hard work is paying off now.
You’ll be releasing your debut record this spring. What are you expecting or would like for it to happen with it?
Erm… you can expect… It’s a fun guitar record – a good indie rock record really. Good pop tunes with big choruses stuff like that.
I agree. I was able to had a sneak peek and I gotta say you are right.
You did? cool! I don’t really know what to expect. I don’t want to have too many expectations in case nothing happens then I’ll be disappointed. But hopefully loads of people will hear it and enjoy it. Fingers crossed, touch wood. *knocks on the table* 😀
Can you tell me a bit more about the musical influence of your debut record?
There was always music in the house I was growing up in: Paul Simon stuff like that. When I was 12 or 13 years old I started listening to the Beatles. They kinda felt different to me. So I started playing guitar which I taught myself. From there the whole world of music is open to you. So I listened to everything. Spent all my money on records and CD’s. It’s kind of a mixed bag. There’s a lot of older stuff that I listen to mainly but more recent stuff would be like Strokes and Arctic Monkeys.
More like rock then.
Yeah yeah Elvis Costello…. Loads of stuff 🙂
Cool cool. So after the release you are touring it through the UK. Are you planning to expand the tour to Europe? A headlining gig in Zurich for example? 😉
Yeah yeah 100%. I really want to because I haven’t really played much in Europe. It will be this year in autumn time I reckon between September and November.
Something to look forward to! Speaking of touring. What’s your bucket list venue to play in?
The biggest in England is Wembley Stadium. That would be amazing. Anywhere really though. I just really love playing live. Anywhere with a good crowd is pretty decent. It’s exciting to see that the venue’s are keep getting bigger and bigger. There not massive yet but fingers crossed they will be.
Well I mean it’s getting there! 🙂 Being at the start of hopefully a successful career. What would you say should happen that you can say „Yup, I’ve made it with my music“?
It’s going to sound a bit corny but I feel like I’ve already have to be honest. It’s my full-time job and that alone is nuts to be honest. I feel really lucky to be able to say that. So yeah obviously you want as many people to hear and appreciate your music as possible. But to me if I can keep doing it than that’s kinda successful.
I’ve asked this question to other artists before and they also say if they can keep doing what they are doing they’re happy.
Yeah exactly. It might not be as an artist but as long as I can do music I’m cool with that.
Fan questions:
Helga who obviously knows your back ground a bit asked how is your relationship with your brother? (Ten Tonnes’ brother is George Ezra)
Great! We’re best mates.
Follow up question: Would you say it’s an advantage or a disadvantage?
I don’t think it’s either really. I never really used it. I’ve been myself. So I didn’t have any advantage from it. As long as people don’t assume that I like do it because of him than that’s fine by me.
That would be weird.
Yes, exactly. ‘Cause it doesn’t work. I still have to be good because otherwise people wouldn’t listen to it. It’s annoying when people assume that. I don’t think there is really a disadvantage. He’s great and it’s cool that we both get to do as well. It’s very lucky.
Now I’m the one asking questions in the fan section *Laughs*. Do you think you’ll be collaborating?
Maybe. I don’t we’ll ever do something like George & Ethan but we might do…. I don’t know… I don’t know how it’s gonna look like…
Like a feature?
Hmm I don’t know. We might do a song but not in the near future maybe like 20 years. I want to get to a point where I am happy with my own thing.
And everyone knows that you are Ten Tonnes
Yes exactly. I would never say never. We’ll see.
Sandra asked how do you break the ice when you play in front of people that don’t know you?
I’m not really good at the chat between songs. My approach is just play really well. I’m better than I ever have been at the chat between songs. Sometimes you just can’t expect them to be going mental. People can enjoy it and just stand still. I needed a while to work that out. When I go to a gig I’m not going insane but I’m still loving it. I’m just chilling. So just play as well as you can and hope they enjoy it. It’s always about how loud they are when you finish a song. That’s always a good indicator of how well it’s going. As long as they are loud between songs then that’s good.
They shouldn’t be loud in between the songs….
I don’t mind. As long as they are singing the songs and not talking.
That’s exactly what I meant! 😀 Unfortunately in some venues in Switzerland we get a lot of talkers.
Lastly some one answer questions to get to know you a little bit better:
Beach or Mountains?
Funny. Shirley from Loads of Music asked me the same question. I said beach but now I’m going for mountains. Have you ever watched Bob Ross?
Yes! Love him!
I say mountains for Bob Ross.
Rain or Sun?
I like the sun but I don’t like being too hot. I love the rain as well. My tour manager always says “You are insane” because I really like bad weather. I think one of the best feelings is when it’s raining outside and you are warm inside chillin’ out. I go rain.
Good thing you’re from England then! 🙂
Yeah, exactly! 😀 I just got used to it.
Sweet or salty?
Salty.
Pub or massive arena?
For playing? Good question! It kinda depends what the crowd’s like. Massive arena is easier I think because you can’t see people’s faces. Those smaller gigs can be really intimidating. I used to play gigs looking down because if you look up you just got direct eyes so close to you. Arenas are good fun too. So either I can’t choose.
And going to gigs?
Probably pub actually.
Zurich or London?
I don’t think there is a right answer *Laughs* I feel like I should say Zurich. I love London it’s where I live. So London’s great but maybe Zurich is too.
You haven’t been here right?
Yeah exactly, so we will see.
That was it. Thank you!
Thank you very much as well.
Ten Tonnes is a lovely lad from England who is a super talented musician. Annie Mac named Lucy hottest track of the world and we can listen to the whole record on May 3rd. My personal fav song of the track is “Better than me”. If you love indie rock make sure to check out the record and watch out for the gig this autumn! 🙂
Kekoas Korner 