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Pet Shop Boys and Tom Jones play Montreux Jazz this summer

Beach Boys great Brian Wilson, Usher and the Pet Shop Boys will be among the headliners at the 51st edition of the Montreux Jazz Festival, organizers announced Thursday.

Published: 31 March 2017 08:20 CEST

Pet Shop Boys and Tom Jones play Montreux Jazz this summer

Photo: Angela Weiss/AFP

The June 30th to July 15th festival in the idyllic Swiss lakeside town will showcase many of music's veterans but with a lineup also pitching to younger audiences.

The roster “draws from the great founders of jazz, reveals young talents and includes the return of pop sensations and the kings of R&B”, festival director Mathieu Jaton said at the programme's launch.

Leading the youth appeal is Beyonce's rising sister, Solange, and the American folk rock group The Lumineers.

Former Fugees front-woman Lauryn Hill is due to perform on July 6th, three days before an appearance by Jamaican singer and model Grace Jones.

Other names are Britain's Bryan Ferry, formerly lead singer of Roxy Music, regular Montreux fixture Herbie Hancock, the American jazz legend, and Welsh crooner Tom Jones, making his first appearance at festival.

Senegalese star Youssou N'Dour will headline the closing night of the festival.

Tickets go on sale at 10am today, Friday 31st March.

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France's Fête de la musique 'will go ahead, with masks and a curfew'

Photo: ABDULMONAM EASSA / AFP

Culture minister Roselyn Bachelot, taking part in a Q&A session with readers of French newspaper le Parisien, confirmed that the annual summer festival will go ahead this year on its usual date of June 21st.

The festival date is normally marked with thousands of events across France, from concerts in tiny villages to huge open-air events in big cities and street-corner gigs in local neighbourhoods.

Last year the festival did go ahead, in a scaled-down way, and Bachelot confirmed that the 2021 event will also happen, but with restrictions.

She said: “It will be held on 21st June and will not be subject to the health passport.

“People will be able to dance, but it will be a masked party with an 11pm curfew.”

Under France’s phased reopening plan, larger events will be allowed again from June 9th, but some of them will require a health passport (with either a vaccination certificate or a recent negative test) to enter.

The Fête de la musique, however, is generally focused around lots of smaller neighbourhood concerts.

The curfew is being gradually moved back throughout the summer before – if the health situation permits – being scrapped entirely on June 30th.

Bachelot added: “I appeal to everyone’s responsibility.

“The rate of 50 percent of people vaccinated should have been reached by then, so we will reach an important level of immunity.”

The Fête de la musique is normally France’s biggest street party, with up to 18,000 events taking place across the country on the same day.

It’s hugely popular, despite being (whisper it) the idea of an American – the concept is the brainchild of American Joel Cohen, when he was working as a music producer for French National Radio (France Musique) in the 1970s.

By 1982 the French government put its weight behind the idea and made it an official event and it’s been a fixture in the calendar ever since.

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