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Did you know that laws around privacy in Switzerland are so strong that paparazzi is essentially illegal? Maybe that’s why FKA Twigs is spotted eating dinner and hanging out carefree with her pals around her ‘Eusexua’ main stage spectacular at Montreux Jazz Festival 2025? There’s also just something in the air around here.
Freddie Mercury used to retreat here to recharge and find his muse (he and Queen would record here often), David Bowie used to live down the road, and Prince loved coming here so much he immortalised it in his song ‘Lavaux’. Sitting on the crystal Lake Geneva beneath the majestic Alps, the Swiss paradise is enough of a massage for the senses without all the sweet sounds along the waterfront. Since 1967, music’s finest and most cutting-edge have flocked to Montreux Jazz Festival. You’ve probably heard a live album recorded here by Nina Simone, Tracy Chapman, Bowie, Iggy Pop, The Smile or RAYE. This is where music thrives and history is made.
With that comes a whole lot of deference. When NME arrives, people are still talking about Jamie xx building his downpour headline set with a nod to Montreux by splicing in a little Marvin Gaye, and the vibe bleeds into Bloc Party’s sunset show on The Lake Stage. “As it’s not every day you play Montreux Jazz Festival, we thought we’d do something special and play something we don’t normally play,” frontman Kele Okereke tells the crowd. “Why not?” They break from the punchy ‘Silent Alarm’-heavy 20th anniversary celebration hit set to let the show breathe with a crisp and soulful outing of ‘Hymns’ rarity ‘Only He Can Heal Me’.
Whether it’s the sight lines, the pumping sound or the magic in the air, this marks the best time we’ve seen Bloc Party this summer – and the same amazingly goes for headliners Pulp.
“Bonsoir!” Jarvis Cocker greets the crowd, fluent in French as he charms us and introduces new album “‘Plus’, ou en Anglais, ‘More’”. He’s been making himself comfortable. Earlier in the day, he gave a talk to festival-goers on the importance of outsider art, where he offered the advice: “The trick is to try and do it with your mind semi-turned off”. It’s that idea that inspires hope when Cocker and band rock up at The Memphis after completing their headliner duties (one of the 80 per cent of stages at the festival that are free to attend, and where anyone can jam – with big names like RAYE known to come have a tinkle or a sing-song).
Sadly, he just waits in the wings as Pulp’s live bassist and backing singers let rip. Still, one mustn’t grumble after that absolute worldie of a headline set. New album cuts ‘Slow Jam’ and ‘Got To Have Love’ effortlessly fly high alongside indie disco classics ‘Babies’ and ‘Disco 2000’, with Cocker’s arm aloft in silhouette as a wiry reflection of the Freddie Mercury statue just outside the venue. ‘L.O.V.E.’ is a universal language.
MJF has already seen sets from the likes of Jade, RAYE, Celeste, Neil Young, London Grammar, Beth Gibbons and James Blake, with Santana, Ezra Collective, The Black Keys, Sigrid and Alanis Morissette set to close it out. Sam Fender sadly pulled out for a second time due to illness, leaving live-love-laugh cheese popper Benson Boone to step up and headline our last night here. Even he senses the weight of the occasion, with the classy move of a spirited cover of ‘Seventeen Going Under’ before later doing one of his not-tedious-at-all backflips into the lake.
We swing by the Casino stage for the silky snake-charmer tones of Latin-pop icon Jorge Drexler and avante-garde Mexican folklore wisdom of Natalia Lafourcade before strolling the lakefront. By the water, there’s rave, some local rock and the sight of hundreds trying to scale the free, packed-out Spotlight Stage to catch a glimpse of French rapper Jolagreen23. MJF is alive with a love of music; not least because the sound quality is impeccable – better than any music festival this writer can remember, perhaps even any standalone venue.
Next year will mark MJF’s 60th edition, with the town’s renovated and iconic Convention Centre – where so many historic shows have taken place – set to take centre stage once again as the main venue after The Lake Stage’s two-year tenure. Expect legends on the line-up alongside the cool and up-and-coming, with some unknowns who just want to jam.
Megastar, muso or just a nerd, it doesn’t matter. As big as they come, no one is bigger than Montreux Jazz Festival. As Jack White famously once put it: “Montreux Jazz is for people who really love music. It starts with that; everything else is secondary. Which is rare nowadays.”
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“I received plenty of comments saying it was far too soon to ‘go solo’,” Geese frontman Cameron Winter told NME last year while reflecting on how people initially reacted to his decision to branch out on his own. “Most likely because a lot of folks assume that ‘solo albums’ only happen once a band has passed its peak and that they usually feel like uninspired cash grabs.”
Honestly, everyone is trying to earn a living however they can these days, yet no one expected a Geese side project to generate any real financial payoff in 2024. “Just so you know,” he went on, “my solo album is different: because barely anyone knows my band, I am young and comfortable living with my parents and I have the freedom to follow any ideas that interest me.”
Brooklyn indie followers and former NME cover stars Geese were gaining real momentum when their second album ‘3D Country’ mixed cowboy psychedelia with a jazzy, art-punk energy that had already captured the attention of many UK 6 Music dads back in 2023, but who could have predicted what came next? Geese have become one of the most talked-about bands of 2025 and are expected to dominate multiple end-of-year lists with the ambitious and full-range rock of ‘Getting Killed’. Yet the moment that set the stage for this rise was Winter’s Lou Reed-inspired debut solo record ‘Heavy Metal’.
A handful of late-night US television appearances and a spot on Jools Holland acted as a welcoming doorway for the world to see what this 23-year-old can do far beyond what many twice or three times his age are capable of. Now the sold-out Roundhouse audience made up of indie teens, art school regulars, fans who traveled across Europe and seasoned listeners reacts with a collective breath as a slight opening in the stage curtain reveals the silhouette of Winter seated at a piano. First comes a spark of excitement, then a sudden hush.
There is no flashy social media moment, no chatter overriding the music and almost no sea of raised phones. There is a sincerity to how the night unfolds. The Geese singer barely turns toward the audience. “Turn around!” someone calls out from the balcony at one stage. “Is this not enough for you all?” Winter teases back. For some, maybe it was more than enough. At least four people appear to faint around the warm and crowded Roundhouse while the room stands in absolute focus as Winter moves through the dreamlike storytelling of ‘Try As I May’, the emotional swirl of ‘The Rolling Stones’, the bright lift of ‘Love Takes Miles’ and the sermon-like stomp of ‘Nausicaä (Love Will Be Revealed)’. When he reaches the intense and spiritually charged ‘$0’, even the most skeptical hipster might be convinced that “I’m not kidding, God is actually real”. In that moment, it feels as though we all understand.
The entire performance can be summed up in how ‘Drinking Age’ unfolds. It starts softly with a gentle touch on the keys before erupting into a thunderous attack on the Steinway that could echo into next year, followed by a long, open cry aimed toward the sky. Winter somehow manages to blend something minimal with something enormous, something grounded with something cosmic, a delicate approach that hits with staggering force as he reaches toward ideas of existence, heaven, hell and everything surrounding them.
Winter could recite the phone book and still leave a crowd stunned. He carries the spirit of a post-punk Rufus Wainwright you can play alongside The Strokes and Arctic Monkeys, a Gen Z Tom Waits for listeners exhausted by TikTok overload, a new Nick Cave who arrives at exactly the moment he is needed. His voice feels older than his years yet perfectly suited to express the concerns and emotions of his own generation.
We will continue praising Geese endlessly because they deserve it. They are an extraordinary burst of musical creativity that goes far beyond what their lineup would ever imply, and along with Fontaines D.C., they are poised to become one of the decade’s essential bands. Still, tonight offers something quieter and more intimate. Cameron Winter stands completely on his own power, talent and magnetism, proving himself a rising force who can hold an entire room with only his voice, a piano and an entire future waiting for him.
‘Try as I May’
‘Emperor XIII in Shades’
‘The Rolling Stones’
‘Love Takes Miles’
‘Drinking Age’
‘Serious World’
‘Nausicaä (Love Will Be Revealed)’
‘If You Turn Back Now’
‘Vines’
‘Nina + Field of Cops’
‘$0’
‘Take It With You’
‘Cancer of the Skull’
