5 June 2011

Geneva

Much like in Belgium, from the Flemish-speaking of Ghent to the French-speaking Brussels earlier in the week, a three-hour drive west from the Swiss-German speaking Zurich takes you to a French-speaking Geneva. I guess this is one of the beauties of Europe.

We arrived on a sunday afternoon, the city was quiet... Seems like everyone was cramming for their monday morning exam at the local Boreal Café, or maybe they were all at Les Bains de Paquis. Some sightseeing shots:


Banks!


Chess!


Mike Wong asian fast-food! (notice the Nike swoosh and the inverted McDonald's arch)


Synagogue! (pour la culture... meep)


No idea!


The gig was organized by Fernando of Cave12, the infamous nomadic series of diverse experimental music in Geneva (since 1989), which recently won a prize from the city for their dedication to the cultural music scene - ours was #221 à l'Écurie:


This was one of the best gig atmosphere of the tour - it was well attended, everyone was respectful and the venue (live room/pub division) was great. The soundcheck was also perfect. Lesson learned: when a soundcheck is too perfect, it means that the sound of the actual gig would be severely lacking as we don't take in account the body masses present in the room...

Unfortunately for me, the difference was quite destabilizing in this room, and I thus understood the importance of using stage monitors, even in a quadraphonic amplifier setting. The common mistake with this setting is that sound guys assume that because there are speakers at the back of the room coming towards you, that you would presumably hear the same sound as the audience. In theory, this is true... but in an empty room! (The same thing happened in Hamburg two years ago, I had forgotten about it... ). Nonetheless, that was a personal quirk and I think the performance was still well appreciated.

It was also really nice to meet Gaétan from three:four Records, as well as ex-Montrealer Jen from [sic] who currently lives in CH, and Marianne, an old acquaintance from Montreal who was doing one-year internship at the Graduate Institute.


Obligatory shot of the shower-in-the-kitchen apartment configuration:

1 comment:

gaetan said...

was also nice to see you there, even if it was very quick.