Switzerland is a small country but still to get to our afternoon gig at the Hotel Alpina in Fiescheralp I had to get up at 5h30, a way too early hour to go play the blues. At 7h30 I picked up Dominik where he lives near Murten, packed his bass and PA gear which means unpacking my stuff to get the weight centered in the car and off we were for our 9 o’clock rdv with the rest of the band at a highway truckstop near Martigny. From there it’s another one and a half hour drive to Fiesch where we transfered all our gear into two large carts to roll them onto the teleferic (again!) that took us up the mountain. The cable car was pretty big but with the beautiful weather and it being a vacation weekend it was crowded.
When it’s like that and you think there isn’t any room left for anyone the “driver” has a special getting on board movement that I think they must live for: avoiding any eye contact you approach the cable car and grab the closest sliding door handle with your opposite hand – so if you’re on the right side of the beast, you grab the left door handle with your right hand – this allows you to rotate your body so that you’re facing out (with your back to the crowd). You grab the other door handle with your other hand and step back into the crowd, applying as much pressure as possible while pulling the doors shut in front of you…
We set up on the restaurant’s terrace and I must admit that by the time everything was up and ready it was already almost 13h30, the time we were scheduled to play so we were a bit late since I for one, absolutely need some food beforehand. A ham and cheese sandwich quickly scarfed down.
Although it was bright and sunny there was enough of a north wind blowing that if you ended up in the shade it was cold. After the first set I put on some ski pants that I had fortunately taken along as well as a down vest but still, speaking for myself, I was totally frozen by the end of the afternoon and I get to wear gloves! That said we had a great time, enough folks obviously preferred sitting out in the sun listening to the blues than facing the slopes and six months of playing together has made the band a lot tighter, even in the one tune we completely screwed up…
Sunday was even better, warmer weather, a larger crowd, plus we started to play earlier in the afternoon and having already played the day before as well as not having to hurry gave a relaxed feel to the day.
I believe I can say that a great time was had by all and a big thank you to everyone at the Hotel Alpina!