Summertime is festival time! After Live at Sunset took a break last year, it’s back at a new location (pretty much just across the street from the old one though). I had the pleasure of seeing and photographing Ronan Keating and Melanie C this past weekend.

Just about 20 minutes after Mel C ended her Set (my review of her show will follow shortly), Ronan Keating took the stage. Even though he just released a new album last year, I have to admit, he wasn’t really on my radar for a few years. Even more reason to be there – of course I was very excited and curious about his performance.

Starting out with some big hits

We really didn’t have to wait for very long to hear one of his biggest hits. He opened the show with “Lovin’ Each Day” and sang the Garth Brooks Cover „If Tomorrow Never Comes“ right after us photographers left the pit. That cover is by the way one of my all time favorite songs of country-king Garth. To my surprise, Ronan kept the country vibe, my little country-heart started skipping a few beats 🙂 Before performing „As Long As We’re In Love“, which can be found on his newest album, he mentioned that it was inspired by the TV show  Nashville – guess who’s a Nashville fan 😉

Let’s go have a seat in Ronan Keatings Kitchen

Ronan invited us into „his kitchen“. I unfortunately missed the story about this, but I think he must have written most of his album in his kitchen. So he wanted to recreate that atmosphere again – just for us. So that’s when this little acoustic-kinda set started. Sitting on barstools, along with some of his band members, Ronan performed some of the songs off his album “Time of my Life”. My personal favorite is “She Knows Me” – a wonderful ballad that really brings out Ronan’s voice.

Unfortunately the audience was a little too quiet for my taste. Quite reserved – I guess Swiss people are known for being like that, but this honestly was a bit sad. Mel C never really got them going either. What a pity… Luckily Ronan did manage to get the audience into a more happy mood. Maybe it was the euphoria of the hardcore fans in the front rows that finally spilled over to the rest of the audience. People started dancing a little more. Even up on the seats you could see some head nods every now and then…

 

But the mood is getting better…

After a while the audience did wake up. You could hear lots of people sing a long to the songs. Especially to the oldies of course. Ronan has been in the business for so long, there are bound to be a few songs that people would know. When Ronan started singing “Father and Son” – a song that he already sang with Boyzone, the audience really started connecting. I was lucky enough to have a few Irish fans around me, they definitely had a good time – the Irish know how to party I guess… Ronan then also sang Van Morrisons „Brown Eyed Girl“ that even got some of the people on the seats to stand up and dance.

Before starting his encore, Ronan asked the people from up on the seats to come down to the standing area and have a good time. Thankfully (or sadly…) there was enough space down there. Ticket sales seem to have not gone the way the organizers were hoping for. To my surprise many of the people actually did come down and celebrated by dancing and singing to Ronan’s last song “Life is a Rollercoaster”. I could see all of that from up on a little terrace over on the side of the Hiltl food stand. It was such a beautiful sight! People dancing, having fun and being happy! A wonderful ending to a great concert night. Many many memories from my teenage years came back up that night…

Ronan Keating @ Live at Sunset 2017