Finally, it was my turn to see Charlie Winston live! The British singer has been to Switzerland a few times, but I somehow always missed his shows. So luckily this time I was there when he played at Kaufleuten, front row as always.

I have to admit, I only knew Charlie Winston through his hit “Like A Hobo” and I really haven’t followed him after that, so I had no idea what to expect from the show. I was determined to be surprised and not go look at videos etc. And man was I surprised, in a more positive way you could imagine! This gig was literally one of the best gigs I’ve been to lately (and as you know, I go to a lot of them ;-))

Suit, tie and a hat – Charlie Winston’s trademark outfit

His outfit was pretty rad. I loved the plaid suit, the matching tie and the hat of course (I guess I have a thing for artists wearing hats…). He started out his set with the song “Another Trigger”. Even though it took a while for the venue to fill up prior to showtime, the audience was there when he needed them to be. The atmosphere was super chill and happy from the very beginning on. Everyone was enjoying the show, was clapping, singing along and dancing. Charlie mentioned that he’ll be playing a few songs off the new record “Square 1” but of course also some of the older ones (yay!). One of the new songs that will for sure make it onto my “Favorites 2018” Playlist is the song “Photograph”, go check it out: Charlie Winston – Photograph.

Charlie is quite the musician; he doesn’t just play the guitar… Every now and then he sat down at the keyboard or played the bass. In the end ,we even got a short glimpse of him at the drums. Man… I can’t even stomp my feet to the same beat as the music 😀

Before performing the song „Wait Until Tomorrow“, Charlie told us how that song came about. Originally him and his family planned to move to Malawi. The day of the move, he had 2 herniated disks and was obviously in so much pain. To add to that, his son started to get seizures from not handling all the meds and vaccinations he had to get before moving to Africa. Poor kid, poor family – their move obviously had to be cancelled last minute (literally). At least something good came out of this; great songs!

Flying mics and strolls through Kaufleuten

You know how artists turn around their mics – or the entire mic stand –  towards the audience to get them to sing? Well, Charlie did that once or twice. One of those times didn’t go as planned – the mic went flying straight into the audience. Not sure where it landed, but the lady who later handed the mic back seemed to  have been Ok, no visible bruises on her forehead 😉 Man, being front row can get dangerous haha!

One of the highlights was for sure „Like A Hobo”. The audience has been singing and dancing pretty much through the entire show, but now everyone seemed to get even more excited. Of course, that’s a song EVERYONE knew 🙂 During the song “A Light” Charlie grabbed one of the LED Lamps from the stage decoration and came down into the audience and started taking a stroll through the venue. Thanks to the lamp we could always see where he was. He even got up on the bar in the back. Cool, even the people in the back of the venue now got to see him up close 🙂

People are digging the new songs too!

Many of the people at the show already knew some of the new songs off Charlie Winston’s newest album “Square 1” and were singing along. I didn’t know the songs but still really enjoyed myself. Charlie Winston for sure made this regular Thursday evening a party night! I haven’t danced like this in a quite a long time. What was even cooler, there wasn’t much talking in the audience! So this is actually possible at Kaufleuten too. This venue tends to attract a lot of blabbering people, but not that night. I loved how we were all just enjoying great music.

So, if you want to spend an evening with talented musicians – great music and just have an overall great time: Charlie Winston will most definitely help with that!

No photos this time, I wasn’t planning on writing about this particular show, but it was just too great to not tell you guys about! But here’s a little part of one of his live performances: