Showtime at the Jazz Festival

So for our first full day in Switzerland, we decide to sleep in a little bit as the day before we had a long flight, drive to Montreux and we were up rather late into the night. Jessica woke up by 11ish to go for her daily run. By about 2pm we left the hotel to walk around and see more of Montreux. I am sure its a lovely town, but with the Festival in town, it attracted a lot of odd people to say the least. We saw some small galleries, took pictures of some statues of famous musicians with ties to the festival (Freddie Mercury, BB King, Ray Charles, Ella Fitzgerald, Miles Davis).

We then got some street cart food for dinner. I guess kebab does not translate, as Jessica ordered the chicken kebab but got shaved chicken fat in a pita - oops!

We then went into the main venue to see Steely Dan and DMB. When we arrived, we found Dave Matthews playing Gravedigger solo for a radio interview in the lobby of the venue! That was a nice treat. We then got upstairs for the Steely Dan set. I enjoyed them, would I spend $200 to see them at the Beacon, no, but I may purchase an album or two after the show. I think I recognized 2-3 songs and they did not play the hits like "Rikki Don't Lose that Number" and "Reelin' in the Years".

DMB put on a solid 2 hour set obviously filled with new material but they did pull out #41, Two Step and Rapunzel. They are new to most European markets and they are pushing the new album overseas, so I figured we would get a set of mostly new material. The audience was strange, a song would start and they would get all worked up, but once Dave started to sing they all got super quiet and stood still, no dancing, no moving, etc. In between songs if someone yelled or something the audience would hush the person. The venue is mostly standing room only, and about 2,000-3,000 people max. Dave was very funny and humble, I think he won over the crowd.