Well, I start to see a pattern here: Kaizers Orchestra concerts in Switzerland are always amazing! This time as well – even though I went there expecting “probably a typical slow warm-up concert in front of an audience that doesn’t really care”… Gosh, was I wrong! The concert was absolutely awesome – as always in Switzerland. *g*

The concept of the night was “Sounds nordic, sounds good!”, a festival organized by the Scandinavian embassies, with a wild mixture of artists from the four countries. Sounds like a nice idea of course, but then, who is such a festival aimed at? Do the organizers expect all Scandinavians from the area to come (just like all Portuguese came to see Xutos & Pontapés in concert *g*)? Or was it for the people working at the embassies? Or for the fans of the four bands?

There were definitely some Scandinavians in the audience, and some embassy people as well (but surprisingly few people that looked like they don’t usually attend rock concerts), and the rest of the audience consisted of fans, apparently! Namely fans of Kaizers and of Mando Diao, because the headliner of the night was Caligola, a side project of two members of Mando Diao. But to get straight to the point: The real headliner definitely didn’t come from Sweden! =;-)

When the second band of the night, the Figurines from Denmark, started playing, the audience was already listening intently, enjoying what they heard. But before Kaizers came on, it clearly filled up in the front. And there were quite a few fans with Kaizer shirts! They were up front; the Scandinavians stood further back, but they also knew the lyrics; and in between: all the new members of the Kaizers family!

Kaizers started with I ett med verden, followed by Knekker deg til sist – uh, what?! I had expected them to play the same setlist as the day before in Vienna. That concert had been streamed live. And I had been looking forward to getting to hear Tusen dråper regn in Zurich, because they had only played that in Norway during last year’s festival summer, not in Europe… He he, guess I got my hopes down to soon, because it was the next song. =;-)

But of course the Jackal had to get an overview first where the audience came from. Six people from Norway, Denmark, and Sweden (always the same six, of course *g*), and the rest from Zurich. A good sign! So the Jackal announced that they had flown in a special guest star to join in a duet for the next song. None less than Hellraizer Kaizer, in his new handsome double-breasted suit of course! And as you probably guessed, the next song was Din kjole lukter bensin, mor. And by then it really started to show that the audience obviously knew the new songs as well, because they loved that song – and even more so the following En for orgelet, en for meg (where they did the part with the concert drum again!).

And this is the moment where the style of this report goes from “by the way, this was a great concert” to “Waaaah! Just awesome! What the hell was that, soooo amazing!!”. OK, maybe a little better worded. *g*

At that point in time, the audience got really into the concert. They were really enthusiastic, and so of course the Jackal animated the audience more and more, and everyone went along. And in addition, this was the very first time that we were asked to sing in German “Eins für DIE Orgel, eins für mich”! Which is grammatically correct! In contrary to “eins für das Orgel”, what we had to sing last year… *g* Yay! And I always thought that the Jackal WANTED to sing it wrong… *lol*

The next song was an old one that they had re-recorded a while ago… hmm, okay… “Die Polizei”, or which song? Naah, come on, that doesn’t fit, in the middle of the concert?! Well, I was wrong again. Not Die Polizei. But: Kavalér. Uh… what?! What the hell?!? Just like that? At a normal concert? Yeeeeaaaah! Wow. =:-D

They continued in a more “usual” way, but by that time, Kaizers had already proven that they manage to surprise you, over and over again! And of course the audience was hanging on their lips; everyone was dancing, jumping, and singing. So nice… =:-)

Next up were KGB and Bøn fra helvete (with Omen stacking the working gloves to pass the time *g*). After that, the Jackal noticed that apparently, there was a soprano in the audience – at least that’s how it sounded. And of course he had to imitate that. =;-) And the next song was a song to which you can really say “aaaah” (imagine that sung in a soprano voice, of course *g*): Kontroll på kontinentet!

This time without the band introduction, but you hardly noticed that this was missing. During Bak et halleluja, we had to repeat the “wop” before the verse until we got it right in gypsy style. After that, we got a traditional, composed by Janove’s great-grandfather: Resistansen. Once more, the Jackal was a bit overwhelmed by his artistic streak, and he started improvising excessively. When the audience stood with their hands in the air during the “ooooh” part later on, he finally got to try out the trick that a Danish artist told him to do in Switzerland: just wave the arm. And it worked: the whole audience magically did a La Ola! Actually, it worked so well that the whole band looked a bit baffled. *gg*

Next, we got the big hit single Hjerteknuser, and then Svarte katter & flosshatter. As always, Omen was the big star of that song! Not only because he seemed to be on a ghost hunt whenever he was not playing (at least that’s what it looked like *g*), but of course because of his performance on the megaphone. And after his second part, he didn’t need a comb this time – well, of course not, without hair… – he just twirled his mustache. *g* And by the way, Kaizers have been trying to convince him to finally record his solo record, but no success up to now… =;-)

As conclusion, Kaizers played Maestro and 170, before they had to leave the stage (they were running late already…). The audience demanded more, but there was no time for that – still, the atmosphere was just amazing, and this was the proof that Kaizers had managed to conquer the audience completely. This is always soooo great to see! =:-)

Afterwards, Caligola were… hmm, not really interesting, I would say. Some of the songs were quite nice, but all in all, it didn’t catch on. And the gowns were just silly. As a result, people started to leave pretty soon, and the audience was rather quiet. So all in all, Kaizers might not have been the last band of the night, but for many they were definitely the headliner! =:-)