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.”