Quietly Confident

Blue Balls Festival promoter Urs Leierer is quietly confident that nobody played so loud at this year’s event that it’s likely to land him in more trouble with the local authorities.

The event was hit with a 1,500 Swiss francs (then US$1,155) fine after Iggy Pop’s 2005 performance was two-and-a-half decibels over the 100 decibel limit, and got another warning last year when Jeff Beck pushed the meters into the red.

Having done next to sell-out business for the last six years, Leierer was pleased to report that this year’s Blue Balls crowd was again up around the 100,000 mark, although at press time he was still waiting to see the final figures.

Although both festivals largely focus on the same target market, Blue Balls and Montreux Jazz – which overlap on the calendar – tend to complete each other rather than compete and it’s not unusual for an act to play both.

Montreux is in the French-speaking part of the country and Blue Balls is in the German part, more than 120 miles away on the shores of Lake Lucerne.

Leierer’s company is based in Zurich but he moves the entire office to Lucerne while the festival is happening.

The acts who played this year’s festival without alarming the local burghers too much July 20-28 included Damien Rice, Seal, David Gray, Gianna Nannini, Calexico, Badly Drawn Boy, Elvis Costello with Allen Toussaint’s band and horns, Ayo, Rickie Lee Jones, Steely Dan and Bebel Gilberto.