On Tuesday, we went to the Zürich concert of Peter Bence. Peter Bence is a Hungarian pianist who gained his fame with piano covers/arrangements – I particularly like his Don’t Stop Me Now and his Bad. Generally speaking, the guy is impressive. He also happens to have held the record of the fastest piano hitting (with 765 hits in a minute 🙂 )

So when a friend mentioned to me that he was coming to Switzerland, I hesitated a bit, and finally went “why not” and bought a couple of tickets for the Zürich show. And I didn’t regret it 🙂

We got treated with two hours of a great show – an alternance of known covers, original pieces, and Bence discussing what he was doing and joking around with the audience. I’ve had a few favorite pieces during the evening: the John Williams medley, the Don’t Stop Me Now (with a bit of Bohemian Rhapsody) and the original piece he called Fibonacci. I was, however, not super convinced by his Somebody to Love – I assume it’s musically good, but to me it felt “messy” and didn’t trigger the “right” emotional response for me, I think.

On the “non-strictly-musical” part of the show, the audience was also asked to contribute during another original piece to clap our hands after a given musical phrase – that was fun, and everybody played the game… even when it came back a bit later. The “lighting” part of the show was also very impressive and working very well.

Theater 11 is not a very large venue (but I think I’ve only been to Hallenstadion in Zürich so far, which is… essentially 10 times larger), which I liked, because even when booking late (and with a low number of places left), we still had pretty good seats. However, there was some issues with the sound system (apparently worse from Bence’s perspective than from ours). I was kind of disturbed at the beginning by a low… hum, I guess, in the speakers – whether it disappeared or I got used to it quickly, I can’t say 🙂

Generally speaking, it was a very, very enjoyable experience, the show was great, and I’m really looking forward to Peter Bence’s album. And to re-listen to what’s on YouTube in the meantime 😉 And if you have the opportunity to see the show: it’s worth it!