Harley Days 2015

In fact with 10 thousand motorbikes, (mainly Harley Davidsons) and 30 thousand people who came to Morzine over the weekend, this year’s Harley Days event has been one of the biggest that Morzine has seen yet. But it was not just Morzine that experienced the roar of the Harley Davidson motorbikes, as 4 thousand bikers joined on the tour on Sunday from Avoriaz to Morzine – now that’s what I call a biker gang! (Or army…)

The weekend brought tourists from all over the globe, which was great for local businesses in Morzine, with American culture meeting French culture through the heritage of the Harley Davidson brand. Having the Harley Days in Morzine has become a much loved tradition for the locals and has helped highlight Morzine as a destination with much more to offer than just the winter mountains.

Along with the bikes, big jewellery and leather waist coats of course came rock and roll. Previous performers include the likes of Status Quo and Morzine lived up to that this year with a line-up that included Beth Hart, Rival Sons and of course the infamous headliners Toto. I was able to watch the wonderfully humble Sofai, a very successfully singer in France who opened the 3 days of free concerts. In speaking with her after the show she expressed her love for performing at her first ever Harley Days event “I’m not a star, I’m used to performing for sure… when you are sharing the stage with Toto, it’s just a pleasure for me.” Except Sofai is anything but humble on stage, as she stole every member of the audience’s attention when she performed a rock version of 'Amazing Grace' and had every crowd member dancing to her rendition of Tina Turners ‘Rolling on the River’.

The lead singer of Rival Sons, also rocked the stage, grabbing the microphone and rivalling Mick Jagger with his funky stage moves, with the crowd loving every step. With Harley Davidson being an American brand, they added an element of their homeland with the sassy Chicago band, ‘Seeds of Summer’ rockers Joan Ov Arc. An all-female indie rock band, they kept in theme of the hells angel rockers that Harley Davidson are known for yet with adding a much needed element of feminism to the male dominated brand. Their cover of Jerry Lee Lewis’s ‘Wild One’ stole the crowd.

Besides the brilliant music talent that performed in Morzine over the weekend, my personal highlight - despite the amount of beautiful motorbikes and leather gear there was to ogle over – had to be the unique car BBQ. It was the front half of a car, with the hood lifted up and where the engine once was, has now been transformed into a BBQ grill. I don’t know who thought of it, but it certainly was effectively as people flocked around it to get their novelty photo and see if the meat tasted like car parts and oil. Rest assured, after taste testing one of their burgers I can assure you that the meat it grilled was just as good as the grills alternative presentation.

The crowd for the headlining performers Toto was in its 10s of thousands, completely encompassing the centre of the town and overflowing onto the streets surrounding. Not all got a great view of the ‘Africa’ singers, but the sound of their un-aged voices could be heard for miles, with each member of the mass crowd cheering. Then there were the fireworks. A beautiful display which was set off from the Pleney mountain, they lit up the sky high for all of Morzine to see and closed what had been a great Harley enthusiasm fuelled weekend and mixed with the excited buzz that was in the air from the crowd, Morzine forgot the trials and stresses which the heavy weekend brought and is now fit and ready for the next time the Harley Days come to visit!