Swiss Live Talents Award 2017

This weekend the 3rd Swiss Live Talents took place in Bern to which the Music Marathon (MUMA) was added this year (read about the concerts here). As a supporter of Swiss music I of course was very curious about the whole weekend and especially about the newcomers at the award ceremony. I admit though, I barely knew anyone of these artists.

Swiss Live Talents

So on Saturday evening, ahead of the MUMA concerts, the Swiss Live Talents award show took place in Bern, at Turnhalle. With the Swiss talents platform Swiss newcomers are getting systematically supported. With the participation at the event newcomer bands and musician get the chance to be discovered nationally and internationally, to become better known as well as the chance to get gigs booked.

Out of more than 600 applicants, 5 were nominated for the awards in 7 categories. This in the categories “Pop Indie Folk Songwriting”, “Rock Metal”, “Best Emerging Talent”, “National Language”, “Urban Hip-Hop Groove Reggae”, “Electro Dance” and “Best Live Act”. Besides the “Foundation Suisa Award” and the “Public Award” have been awarded.

The Award Show

And how does such an award show work? Actually not any different from the award shows on TV. During about 2 hours the moderators Gisela Feuz and Mik Clavet lead through the evening in a very entertaining way. On the one side in German, on the other one in French and with the attempt to overcome the Roestigraben. 😉 The whole then mixed with English, because Ticino and other international guests were attending. Somehow one understood each other in the end 😉

Various national and international speakers announced the nominees and winners of altogether 9 awards.

Veronica Fusaro opened the event musically and in-between the whole show various live acts presented themselves. Next to her the live acts were Odd Beholder, WUGS, KT Gorique, Gina Estrada and La Nefera. Some of them were even award winners. Except of Veronica Fusaro I didn’t know any of the live acts. Well, most of their music I didn’t like that much, but of some of them I still was impressed and found them cool.

The winners

With the Foundation Suisa Award the first award went to Fai Baba, which honors songwriting. Fai Baba are Fabian Sigmund and his band. The psych-rock band was founded in 2006. Even I’ve heard the name x-times before and last year they have released their 5th album already, I don’t know them any further.

In the category Pop Indie Folk Songwriting Odd Beholder won. Odd Beholder are Zurich pop duo James Varghese and Daniela Weinmann, that was founded in 2013. They play dream pop. So rather quiet songs. The two of them were one of the live acts.

The Rock Metal Award was won by The Last Moan. The Last Moan is an in 2014 founded rock duo – Gaëten on drums and Igor on guitar. Their first album “Zig Zag Dream” was released at the beginning of the year. It contains rhythmic bluesy rock songs.

As Best Emerging Talent Long Tall Jefferson was chosen. The Luzern musician Simon Borer, also member of Pablo Nouvelle, is touring with his debut album “I want my honey back” through Europe and that’s why he wasn’t able to take the award personally. I’ve seen him as a support of Tom James about a year ago. In singer/songwriter style with an acoustic guitar the songs are rather calm. I though couldn’t really get into his music so far.

Top dog of the evening was KT Gorique. She wasn’t only nominated in the categories National Language, Urban Hip-Hop Groove Reggae and for the public award, she even won the National Language and Public awards.

The young rapper is also a dancer as well as an actor and was born at Ivory Coast. She’s living in Switzerland since the age of 12 and grew up in Martigny. 2012 she became Swiss champion in the category freestyle at End Of Weak, the most important competition for rap improvisation. She took part in the world championship in New York and became the first ever female End Of The Weak champion. 2016 she released her first album.

She was also one of the live acts of this evening. With the energy she was standing on stage, sure quite something was going on at her concert later in the evening.

The award in category Urban Hip-Hop Groove Reggae was given to Koqa Beatbox. Koqa Beatbox are Arthur Henry (voc/beat boxing), Felix Fivaz (drums) und Paul Butscher (Flugelhorn). They are touring together since 2013, mixing hip hop and electronical music with jazz, folk and dubstep.

WUGS got the Electro Dance award . WUGS is short for “What U Gonna Say?”. They are a Genevan trio of two DJs and a singer. They showed a short, but very energetic and impressive performance. I thought the trio was pretty cool. Especially their singer got a super voice and seems to be a real power woman.

The last award as Best Live Act went to Zeal & Ardor. Zeal & Ardor is a project of Basel musician Manuel Ganeux in the metal genre, he and his band are successfully touring Europe with. Except of their video for “Devil is fine” [that I quite like and you can watch here], a mix of gospel and black metal, I don’t know the group so far.

Overall an exciting event

It was an entertaining and interesting award show. I can barely judge though whether I would have given away the awards to the same ones, because I just don’t know most of them.

About the nominees you can get informed on www.swisslivetalents.ch 😉

I haven’t really discovered anything new for me during the show. A lot seemed very electronical (somehow that’s the trend 2017). But at least I became curious about KT Gorique and WUGS.

My highlight of the award show were actually the presenters, who lead through the show in a great way. Together with MUMA it’s overall sure an interesting event though. We’ll see how it will be at the next event in two years.