* Maria Mena and Chlöe Howl at Blue Balls Festival 2014 *

Another year, another Blue Balls Festival ..

This annual festival with slightly inappropriate name for an English speaking artists and audience started back in 1992, in front of the small, mostly local audience and over the years grew into an international music festival with impressive line-up and amount of visitors over the nine days in July. Happening in a beautiful surrounding next to Lake Lucerne, in Switzerland, on the various locations like an Open-Air Pavilion, the Lucerne Culture and Convention Center and The Club at the Schweizerhof Hotel, it presents more then 100 shows with international artists different genres; with local, Swiss artists (Young Talents stage) as well as photography exhibits, video lounge and films dedicated to music.

There are several things that keep on bringing me back to Blue Balls Festival, but most importantly an awesome line up with great balance of young and well known artists different genres, venues with impeccable acoustic as well as beautiful settings where it is happening.

This was my 4th year on the festival and I was exploring the female factor by choosing three days with female artists I wanted to include in my review.
Over three consecutive days I've seen five female artists/acts: Maria Mena and Rita Ora on 23th, Goldfrapp on 24th and on 25th of July Chlöe Howl and Joss Stone.

Maria Mena is an artist that I've actually discovered only recently, but was instantly drown to her powerful storytelling songs heavily influenced by her own experience, something that in many ways clashed with the pop genre that she belongs to. The honesty of her emotions were so obvious in her songs, that I just wanted to get a chance to hear the story of her life from her directly, so I asked and was lucky to get an interview. The interview only confirmed that behind those intense songs, there is a woman, that while growing up in the public learnt how to "write off" her issues and insecurities. However, today she is a confident woman that also knows how to enjoy life and have fun as intensely as all those heavy emotions that she dealt with through her songs.
Even before she was nominated for BBC - Sound of .., I heard about Chlöe Howl, because she is one of those artists that one just can't miss. I immediately liked everything about her: her music, fresh style (inclusive pixie hairstyle), the colourful videos, as well as unpolluted, simple rawness of the emotions that she expresses in her songs.
She reminded me of the teenage times and the crowd that I used to hang around back in the days. And even the interview with Chlöe was as much fun as I expected with lots of honest answers and giggles.
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Tune in tonight (20.10.2014) to Gimme A Beat, to hear the interviews with Maria Mena and Chlöe Howl, and the story about their careers, music and their future. I will also share my impressions of Blue Balls Festival 2014, all the gigs I've seen, and play the music from Maria's last album and Chlöe's EPs as well as selected songs from Joss Stone, Rita Ora and Goldfrapp,

Tune in for..

Maria Mena and Chlöe Howl at Blue Balls Festival 2014  with ** playlist to be added **

from 22:00 - 00:00 on:
webradio lora

featuring:
gimme a beat on youtube

Kisses,
Babymonster
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the info about old shows please go to previous entries

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