Snowpenair 2015: A special day with Ronan Keating

Ronan Keating at Bernese Oberland

The Snowpenair 2015 programme seemed not so interesting this year, but when Ronan Keating got announced, it was clear I’d go. I had only seen him once years ago for 4 Songs at “Sky Dance” in Zurich and otherwise only 2-3x with Boyzone. So, a Ronan Keating solo concert was long overdue. And when it was announced, he’d also be in Thun for a TV prerecoring, it promised to become a Special day. I had no idea how special and crazy.

I arrived early at kleine Scheidegg. After all I really wanted to be front row. Well, so far it never has been too difficult, but you never know… every year I think, I Need a plastic bag or a sliding board to get from entrance down to the stage. I never have anything with me 😉 Before doors opened I met 3 woman from UK, who came only for Ronan to Switzerland. It was his first concert in a long time, before he had played at the theater in London. So this snowpenair concert was longed for by them of course. And we reached front row without breaking our necks. The weather wasn’t the very best, but it could have been defintively a lot worse. And not long after doors opened the first concert already started.

Major-B
Major-B are a dialect band from Interlaken in genres of pop, rock, funk, soul, reggae and latin. A big (9 members), motley group, that quickly managed to get a good atmosphere and I liked. The lyrics in the Songs as “Tatsach isch”, “Mit dir isch Sunnti” or “Millionär” are really good too. I also had a listen to their album later at home and think, they are good on the album, but you really got to see them live.


Krokus

Krokus were the second band, another Swiss band. At least here in Switzerland everyone knows them?! I really didn’t feel like seeing them. It’s a band that I actually never listen to at home, unless they are on the radio. A hardrock band, just not my kind of music and I don’t like certain bandmembers much. But I got to stay, the concert wasn’t bad. I’ve seen Marc Storance on the Slädu & friends tour before and he was also super sympathetic there at Kleine Scheidegg. And except of this you got the feeling with these elderly men that they had super fun with their performance. They played the show all relaxed. Well, of course with age and experience you play differently than when you just had your first shows as a band. But this joy with Krokus I thought was really special and very nice. Funny was also, how you could see, what songs were really well known and which ones less. The audience totally reaceted to them.


Ronan Keating
And then finally Ronan Keating. The clouds got more compact again when he entered stage with the band. I believe he was freezing at times in his leather jacket, but when it started snowing slightly and the small snowflackes danced from the sky, with his wonderful songs as “When You Say Nothing At All”, “If Tomorrow Never Comes” or “Lovin’ Each Day” it was just magical. His setlist consited mainly of older songs with only few new ones. But that’s probably just what is (still) known here in Switzerland. When I told my younger photographer friend about Boyzone, he didn’t even know who they are 😉 It was so wonderful to finally see my first, real and complete Ronan Keating concert. Really great.

As soon as Ronan had left stage, we also were gone. Laura Pausini had to do without us 😉 I would have loved to get a setlist, but it was just a Ronan Keating Snowpenairbit difficult there and we had to leave. We went down from the mountains into direction Thun to Konzepthalle. Ronan had a TV performance at “Kilchsbergs Jass-Show” the same evening. Even the UK fans had some tickets for the show. First I suggested to take the train direction Lauterbrunnen as I came with it and thought there was no difference whether to go via Lauterbrunnen or Grindelwald. But the UK fans said that the connection via Grindelwald suited well. So we let us put into the Gindelwald train. We were sent one door further than the one I wanted to get in. I thought it was just to keep everything organized, so everyone had to follow up.

I barely sat in the train when someone said: “Did you see? The waggon was labeled with “Ronan Keating”!” Before I even realized what happened, I saw Ronan Keating with girlfriend and crew approaching and getting in the door next. I got such big eyes and I don’t know, I probably sat there meeting them with disbelief. Ronan Keating ast in the same wagon, in the next cabin. My friend had mentioned before the concert that if we were lucky, we might sit in the same train. Of course I dissmissed with “well, never!”. And there he was sitting. The waggon got of course huge windows between the two cabins. I sat with my back to them – luckily. I probably would have met them in disbelief all the time 😉 In Grindelwald everyone got off – and there I asked for a picture. Well, 2 seconds and he wa gone again. Barley could send him a thank you for the great concert. Well, we had to go one station further then 😉

Ronan Keating in Thun
In Thun we had some food first and then were off to Konzepthalle. While waiting for show start, Ronan and his girlfriend posted pictures of the hotel view on instagram. I almost had a stroke, it looked like my view from home. I started thinking about hotels close to me. Imagine they would have put them into the hotel opposite of me 😉 With the few pictures I soon found out it was some more kilomethers down the road though. And no, I did NOT go to the hotel 😉

Coffee and a window. Not a bad way to start the day… #Switzerland #lake #view #alps #snow #beauty

Ein von Storm (Uechtritz) Keating (@stormykeating) gepostetes Foto am

However, it was probably the worst and most embarrassing TV show I’ve seen on Swiss TV in a long time. The UK fans didn’t understand much, but they’ve seen several European TV Shows already and also thought this was about the worst. They played “omlette turning” with the guests and such. The discussions and performances inbetween weren’t better either. Some people really should finally retire. To see Ronan we of course had to wait to the end of the show. Before the big show final, his was the last performance. At least they had put up a nice stage setting for him. As a fan one is really embarassed that he was invited to quite likely the worst CH-show. When everyone had to go outside for the big final, we took our heels 😉 But the UK girls had to catch their train back to Interlaken anyway.

[Here you can watch Ronans performance incl. the whole show] or [here is my video of Ronan’s performance]

Well, even with the horrible show, that showed to me why I generally don’t watch CH tv, it was an incredible great day. Really crazy, but simply super! I hope, Ronan comes back for a concert soon.

www.ronankeating.com
www.krokusonline.com
www.major-b.ch