American pop star Prince has closed this year's Montreux Jazz festival, wowing around 4,000 fans with an exuberant performance.
This content was published on
1 minute
His appearance crowns a successful 2009 festival, which the organisers say attracted around 230,000 visitors – 10,000 more than last year.
Prince, now aged 51, gave two shows on Saturday evening to a packed out Stravinsky Auditorium.
Tickets had sold out in a record eight minutes after the concerts were announced, despite seats not being cheap at SFr195 ($180) for standing room and SFr480 for seated.
It was a rare European appearance by the artist, who last appeared in Montreux in 2007.
Wearing a bright red suit, a geometric gold necklace and red and white platforms, the singer appeared on stage bathed in his trademark purple light.
He sang a mix of titles, including old favourites such as Purple Rain and fresh tracks such as Elixir from his new album.
“Montreux, thank you,” Prince said to the crowd before he started an encore.
Other main attractions at this year’s festival included B.B. King, Herbie Hancock, Black Eyed Peas, Grace Jones and Lily Allen.
The 43rd Montreux festival, which this year had a budget of SFr29 million, said that turnover had risen by ten per cent on last year. More than 90,000 tickets were sold.
“The artistic freedom and the presence of many music colleagues makes Montreux Jazz a special festival,” the organisers said.
If you want to start a conversation about a topic raised in this article or want to report factual errors, email us at english@swissinfo.ch.
Read more
More
Montreux Jazz Festival heads to airports
This content was published on
Planned locations for the cafés include Geneva, Zurich, New York, Los Angeles, Hong Kong and Sydney. Nobs told the Sonntag newspaper that each location will be able to cater for 150 customers, and will include space for small concerts as well as a selection of music and other items branded with the Montreux name for…
This content was published on
The 25-year-old singer-songwriter gave swissinfo this email interview ahead of her concert at the Cully Jazz Festival near Lausanne, which runs from Friday until April 4. From her humble beginnings on her lo-fi album “Sketches on Sea” in 2006 to Switzerland’s best-kept secret to entering the Swiss charts at number one with “Monday’s Ghost” in…
This content was published on
Since 1967, the festival’s founder and director, Claude Nobs has tried to keep a record of the music. His partner, Thierry Amsalem, now looks after the archive stored in Nobs’ chalet in the hills above Lake Geneva and managed by the Montreux Sounds company. It was there that swissinfo visited Amsalem to see and hear…
This content was published on
These posters bear the signatures of Niki de Saint-Phalle, Keith Haring, Andy Warhol or Phil Collins. And they sometimes remind us of a concert or another time in our lives. (All pictures: Montreux Jazz Festival)
You can find an overview of ongoing debates with our journalists here . Please join us!
If you want to start a conversation about a topic raised in this article or want to report factual errors, email us at english@swissinfo.ch.