Joss Stone backing singers stir up street concert

“It was just awesome,” enthuses Dominik Liechti. A video showing a goose bumps moment is trending on social media.

For 15 years, Liechti and his friend Dan Mudd have been on the streets making music, especially during the winter months. “We don’t like to sit in the office and plan, we’re outside and just play,” says Liechti, founder and owner of the event agency Bearbeat GmbH in Thun. During the pandemic, Liechti and Mudd played over 250 balcony concerts: “Playing on the streets in the cold is a tough job. But we just love it.”

Last Saturday, Liechti and Dan Mudd played songs live on Kornhausplatz with guitar and cajón for the Bern audience. “First it was a concert like any other,” says the music entrepreneur. After half an hour, however, a “crazy moment” occurs, as Liechti calls it: in the middle of the song “Tennessee Whiskey”, three women join the duo and begin to accompany the guitar melody with backing vocals. “We couldn’t believe how well it came together.” The women perform the song together with the Swiss musicians, the audience is carried away by the melody and the moment.

On the video you can see Liechti interrupting the cajón and watching the women: “At first I thought: These will be our new backings for the summer.” When he speaks to the young women after the emotional performance, he learns that they will be performing together with the soul singer Joss Stone on the same evening at the Bierhübeli. They are Angel Silvera, Hollie Hammel and Emoni Wilkins, three singers from the United States. They are touring with Ash Soan, a British drummer and three-time Grammy winner. “They asked us if we wanted to come with them,” says Liechti. The duo then spent the evening on the VIP balcony of the completely sold-out concert: “It was a wonderful moment.”

“It’s incredible that we have the whole meeting on video,” says the longtime musician. It has been viewed thousands of times on Facebook. “We were just in the right place at the right time, as they say,” says Liechti. “We’ve been making music on the street for so many years now – and luck has given us these five minutes.”

The comments below the video attest to the magic of the moment. A user writes: “Goose bumps alarm! But how can you not immediately want to sing along to a song like this and then it’s played by you! Impossible! Super cool that they invited you ». Another user writes: “We make music for moments like this. No matter who and how. The main thing is that it fits.”