Greenfield Festival |
|
14 June 2026 - Schweiz
There was a shit ton happening this week, so I tried to sell my 3-day pass for the Greenfield Festival. The festival was not sold out though, so the offers I got where only steeply discounted ones. Having been in Venice last weekend and only arrived home Monday evening, to get on a train Wednesday morning less than 48 hours later to head to Interlaken was a bit loony. Plus I had a full work week to fill an a big presentation Thursday. But I managed the meetings and coding and Slack conversations on trains, in my tent, and in the lovely little coffee shop in Matten a short walk from the festival grounds. What I did not manage was to take the B1 French exam I had rescheduled from the weekend of Grandma's funeral. C'est la vive.
Having had small children at a young age and been a student with little money, I really didn't have the opportunity or funds to go to concerts in my 20's, much less multi-day music festivals. Ergo I came with just the experience of Grenchen two years earlier. That was a really great muddy experience though, so I resolved to try Greenfield and up until Thursday still planned to travel back and forth to Zürich for the French test Saturday. Eknath Easwaran had a mantra that has stuck with me over the years: "renounce and enjoy". After nailing the work presentation Thursday afternoon I realized I was doing too much and had a decision to make. Do I want to just go home from the festival Friday, miss that evening's concerts and not come back Saturday but take the French test, or, do I want to stay at the festival?
At decision points it's often best to stand back and take the long perspective. Which would I regret having missed years from now? I'd already paid for both so they were sunk costs. Taking money out of the equation (where possible) is can also be important for making the right decision. On the other hand, sometimes it can be the deciding factor. But that was not the case this time. I realized that having the B1 French bullet point on my resume instead of the A2 bullet point was unlikely to affect my job prospects that much, so the test was really for me. I know that my level of French is good enough to read books and get by in conversation. Did I really need a piece of paper? On the other hand, a weekend in Interlaken listening to bands I love (Sabaton, Offspring, Volbeat) and discovering new ones promised an enriching and relaxing experience. So I chose the latter. Ironically the Swiss German father and son sitting next to me on the train home have just now started practice the son's French. We're all always working on self-betterment.
Thursday's lineup included two of the bands I was most excited to see: Offspring and Sabaton. Having started my workday at 4:30 AM I knew I would be needing a nap. The presentation meeting didn't end until 4PM. Then I went back to the festival to check out the music. I caught the second half of Ice Nine Kills' set. Decent metal, but a bit too much theatricality. Evil clown swinging a pretend dead baby around by the umbilical cord was just ridiculous. On the small stage Unpeople was entertaining. But then I got to see most of Creed! Alter Bridge is great music with an unfortunately annoying vocalist in Miles Kennedy. I don't know much about their feud with Scott Stapp, but I would have enjoyed it more if he was there too. So then I went to tray and take a nap. I didn't succeed, but I did make some friends playing lawn games. Oh yeah, and the camping started Wednesday afternoon in the rain where I spent the evening chatting with a group of friends from Australia. We all ran off to see Offspring at 9:20, which was everything I hoped it would be. Great band. Great music. And they even did a cover of Ozzy Osborne's Crazy Train. I also got to enjoy a serious mosh pit, after which the fact that I'd been up for 18 hours really hit me. So after their set I decided to go back to my tent and take a power nap before Sabaton came on at 11:30. I even set an alarm. Unfortunately I woke up Friday morning.
Friday morning was the same drill as Thursday. Up with the sun, walk to the coffee shop that opens at 6AM, charge my phone and work. But I only needed to work a couple hours to fill out my time for the week. So I took my laptop back to my tent and replaced it in my bag with a swimsuit and towel. Then I resolved to wander. I highly recommend wandering, that is, setting out on foot without a plan and seeing where it leads. In Friday's case I walked down the Lütschine River to the Brienzersee. Conveniently there was a Schwimbad there with a heated pool, so I could submerse myself in the freezing lake and then swim leisurely in the pool. The last time I swam in the Brienzersee it was after white water rafting down the Lütschine, so I was wearing a wetsuit. Friday I did not spend more than a few minutes in the lake with the pool beckoning nearby. But where to have lunch? Looking at a map Lauterbrunnen was not that far. So I walked along the lakeshore and then along the Aare River to the Interlaken Ost trainstation, where I grabbed one to Lauterbrunnen. Supposedly J. R. R. Tolkein's trip to Lauterbrunnen at age 19 led to him giving us Rivendell. It's a beautiful glacial valley. I took a short hike behind a waterfall and ate a bratwurst with a panache. On the train back to the festival grounds I got to listen to some elementary school aged boys from Atlanta and Florida who had just met recount their respective adventures to eachother. Funny that my old country is the New World.
Friday afternoon I decided to make sure I got in the nap. I caught the end of Moment of Madness' set on the big (Jungfrau) stage and then went to see a French metal band, de l'abîme naît l'aube. Initially their "ritual" was something out of a Spinal Tap movie, with the vocalists carring out tiny smoking clay pots. I was waiting for them to lower a tiny Stonehenge, too! But then they started playing, and, wow, it was pure excellence. Primal screams. Melodic waves of guitars. Added to my playlist. Then for some reason they gave two idiots called The Butcher Sisters the main stage. They were rappers more interested in fucking with the audience than making music music. Like convincing a nascent mosh pit that they about to do something very metal and then playing NSYNC. Or attempting to crowdsurf on an inflatable horse and failing repeatedly. But they did it all in German for the local audience. I didn't watch to the end, but opted to go back to my tent for a much needed nap. Well rested a few hours later I went back to the music and saw another German band, In Extremo. Damn, they like pyrotechnics! And the music was a mixture of bagpipes and metal, which definitely got them added to my playlist.
At this point I should probably mention that inside the Greenfield Festival there is for some reason a Renaissance Faire, the Mittelalter Markt. They have their own food, their own shops, a stage for mock battles, and a stage for bands. The food was better than what was offered inside the area with the metal stages and they didn't force you to drink Heinekin, the only beer available at the festival. The security check into the metal stages area allowed no outside beer, but at least they allowed water. And were really not good at checking in their pat downs for well hidden beers from outside. As mentioned, there was a music stage in the Mittelalter Markt and it was there eating pierogis that I discovered Tain, who I actaully got to see perform a couple times during the festival. More bagpipes! The evening ended with Bad Omens, which I didn't know anything about beforehand despite them be a headliner. Dark, but worth checking out further.
Saturday I was up with the sun as always and headed out to do some more wandering. Of course I took my swimtrunks and towel. I started the day as had become my pattern with a coffee and croissant in Matten with a bit of phone charging and journaling. Then I wandered over toward the Thunersee and Interlaken's western train station where I caught a bus to the St. Beatus Höhle. Longtime readers of this blog will be aware of my interest in spelunking and speleology. Here a river plunges out of the Cretaceous limestone clifface several hundred meters down to the lake. And one can follow that river up inside the mountain. It's a highlight of the Interlaken - Spiez segment of the Via Jacobi which unfortunately Paula and I passed several hours before it opened two years ago. As with much of Switzerland the cave is dog-friendly. It's also perhaps the inspiration for Gollum's cave as Tolkien traveled through this area of Switzerland as a young adult. It's an uphill hike through the cave and then the same path back. There is constant lighting throughout the cave, so most of the interesting features are unfortunately green with algae or moss. After enjoying the cave I hiked down to the Thunersee and took a swim a Sundlauenen. Somehow the Thunersee is much warmer than the Brienzersee even though they are connected by the Aare. Then it was a boatride back to Interlaken to catch a bus back to the concert area.
The musical highlight of the afternoon came from New Dehli: Bloodywood. They're a fusion of heavy metal with traditional Indian music and sing incredibly upbeat lyrics. I am going through their catalog on Spotify this evening. I had another evening nap which led me to have energy to enjoy the final act of the festival: Volbeat. These guys are Danish metal rednecks who I saw for the first time last year, but have enjoyed them since Liv Kristen introduced me to their music during those two weeks on Stord Island six years ago. They played their hits and did a cover of Johnny Cash's Ring of Fire. In all I think going to the festival was a good decision.
