The French summer wasn't very exciting... Only one good techno festival all over France (Astropolis)... that's why we decided to spend the most of our time in Switzerland where there were specially two great events. At first, we went to the Lethargy festival, that takes place every year in Zurich for the famous Street parade. The two days line-up at the Rote Fabrik was amazing ! No big techno stars, but it brings many many people in a very very good atmosphere ! So, we enjoyed there very good live-acts : the crazy Detroit Grand Pubahs, Decomposed Subsonic, Paul Brtschitsch, Jimi Tenor, Continuous Mode (too bad we missed Closer Musik) and groovy mixes by Ellen Allien, Ricardo Villalobos, Miss Kittin, Dan Bell, Bomb The Bass... But the most surprising artist was Erobique. He played live with one piano, one MPC 2000, one microphone and it was CRAZY ! House, Electro, Disco, Pop & Techno, this young musician-crooner can play everything with a very good sense of humour ! He didn't hesitate to sing the famous "Love is in the air" from John Paul Young... Really funny !
On Saturday afternoon, we also went to the Street Parade... and it wasn't so bad ! There was a very good atmosphere, good music (not only commercial Trance), happy people and a very good organisation. With more than one million people in the streets, it became this year as important as the Love Parade in Berlin... Respect. Too bad we don't have such an event in France...
Two weeks later, Vision was also a very important summer-event for the Techno scene in Switzerland. Organised by Dekadance, it took place for the 9th edition in Interlaken, not too far from Zurich. There were all the most important artists of the Cocoon agency (Sven Väth's one) on three tents and one big open-air. 24 hours of non-stop music that started on Saturday 2.00 pm, in a natural site on the mountain. The atmosphere was quite underground even if the entrance was expensive (68 CHF / 300 FF) ! All the artists played in front of a very good audience. There were Pascal Feos, Toni Rios, Hardfloor, Michael Mayer, Tobias Thomas, Isolée, Michel de Heij and Sven Väth of course.... We particularly appreciated Swayzak's live-act on the biggest scene, the "ping-pong" between Thomas Heckmann and Ricardo Villalobos in the first tent and the really good sets of Marco Carola. At first, he played on three desks on the biggest floor, really impressive and effective. He tested his forthcoming tracks of his new album on the dancefloor : killer tracks of course ! He seemed to be in a better health than Sven Väth and had more success ! Then he played a deep techno-house on the House tent with Ricardo Villalobos : it was amazing ! Before he left, he played again on the open-air when the sun was rising... Beautiful !! It was a very nice party, probably one of the best of the year...
We can't wait for the next edition and hope that a Cocoon Club in Switzerland will open soon !!
Diego, Gianluca : grazie mille per le fotografie ! ;-)
www.dekadance.ch     www.lethargy.ch     www.rotefabrik.ch
Ingrid, 30/08/2001