2023 was Gurtenfestival's 40th edition, with 67 bands performing over the course of a celebratory five days instead of the usual four. What started as a small folk music gathering in the 1970s has now become one of Switzerland's best-known festivals, with a daily count of about 20'000 people heading up a hill on the outskirts of Bern. The English Show covered two days of this year's Gurtenfestival, enjoying the range of music on offer as well as the always-stunning views of the Alps.

English singer-songwriter Sam Smith released their most recent album «Gloria» in January 2023. Taking the album on the road, Smith launched «Gloria The Tour» in April 2023, with a stop at the Hallenstadion in Zurich for a near sold-out show.

Two masters of dark and melancholy metal stopped off in Zurich on their "Twilight Burials" tour through Europe: Sweden's Katatonia and Iceland's Sólstafir. For over a quarter of a century, both bands have been releasing music in varying degrees of heaviness, traversing the subgenres of black metal, death metal, post-metal and more – and in all cases, connecting emotionally with their audiences.

No band could possibly still be this good four decades into their career, surely? Yes, they could. Formed in 1978 and with thirteen studio albums under their belt, The Cure continue to pack venues as they tour the world. Their schedule is relentless, three nights in a row, one day off, then two nights again, each concert almost three hours long – how on earth do they do it?

Editors just seem to get better and better. Starting out as an indie rock band in the noughties, over the years they kept adding layers of electronica and experimentation, growing stronger with each consecutive album. Their newest, "EBM", is characterised by the industrial electronica of musician and producer Benjamin John Power, a.k.a. Blanck Mass, who joined the band as a full-time member in 2022.