To call Colson the most listened-to man of the Forum will hardly be a misnomer. The Canadian has managed to do what the WEF has increasingly failed to achieve: Bring people together and build a community.<\/p>\n
And this year was no different. He played it loud and long.<\/p>\n
Transcending the profundity, prattle and political diatribe, Colson is the one Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney turned to, to practise his pauses, the night before his now famous 15-minute speech that reminded the world of the end of Pax Americana. <\/p>\n
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The following night, Carney\u2019s predecessor Justin Trudeau showed up with his girlfriend and singer Katy Perry for a post-dinner nightcap. So did actor Sacha Baron Cohen. Elon Musk is rumoured to have sauntered in closer to dawn. US commerce secretary, the voluble Howard Lutnick, \u201can old friend\u201d of Colson\u2019s, dropped in too.
Says Colson: \u201cIn the past, Lutnick would stay on till the wee hours and then join me to have the world\u2019s best chicken wings, nuggets and more alcohol at 7 am at the X Bar next-door. Once during President Donald Trump\u2019s first term, he almost forgot he had a breakfast appointment with POTUS. Thank God, I reminded him an hour prior.\u201dSuch stories of raucous men and boldfaced beauties are commonplace\u2014both from Colson\u2019s earlier tenure at the Hotel Europe and at the current pop-up venue, The Cloudflare House, about 500 m down the Promenade, the main thoroughfare. There\u2019s Randi Zuckerberg, tech entrepreneur and Mark\u2019s sister, standing behind Colson singing through the night. <\/p>\n
And actor-comedian Chris Tucker bringing the house down with a jaw-dropping vocal performance. Or, visualise Google cofounder Sergey Brin leaving a $100 tip or its former CEO Eric Schmidt cajoling Colson to play at Google\u2019s own party, Zeitgeist.<\/p>\n
One time, as Colson\u2019s lore goes, former Australian PM Kevin Rudd walked in with Ian Bremmer of the consulting firm Eurasia Group, completely covered in snow, after sledging down the mountain on a toboggan after a long night of negronis at the Berghotel Schatzalp, and slaughtered \u201cDown Under\u201d, the foot-tapping hit from the Aussie band Men at Work. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe just can\u2019t sing,\u201d blurts Colson ruefully. \u201cBut it was still a blast.\u201d For every Peter Gabriel, Bono and James Cameron, who would just sit and soak in all the fun, there are several heads of states \u201cwho cannot be named under any circumstances\u201d dancing dead drunk to the piano.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think I corrupted them,\u201d says Colson, with a glint in his eyes. \u201cI really did. I kept them up way past their bedtime, but it was crazy fun.\u201d<\/p>\n
THE FAM JAMThis deep bond is what makes people come back year after year. In fact, Barry\u2019s Piano Bar is itself a product of a beautiful friendship between him and Matthew Prince, the billionaire-founder of Cloudflare, an online security company.<\/p>\n
Back in 2019, Prince met a dishevelled Colson, then the \u201cJanuary pianist\u201d at the Hotel Europe, looking visibly stressed, irritated and weary. \u201cHe had gained a bunch of weight and I could sense something was off,\u201d says Prince, shouting over the voices in the room that just raised their pitch to sing the chorus lines of Robbie Williams\u2019 \u201cFeel\u201d\u2013 the anthem of WEF, as Colson puts it.<\/p>\n
Colson had been associated with Hotel Europe\u2019s Tonic Bar, the original piano bar of Davos, since 1995, playing all of January, 10 pm-4 am on the trot. The first time he played a gig was in the August of 1993 when he \u201cabsolutely hated the weather\u201d. <\/p>\n
But even though the hotel\u2019s management had brought him back, over the years, familiarity bred contempt. The \u201centertainer-in-chief\u201d was reportedly paid 10,000 euros a month. \u201cIt was less than what they would earn in liquor sales in an hour and it was all because of Barry,\u201d says Prince.<\/p>\n
The note soured further when Colson, coaxed by Prince, asked the hotel\u2019s management for a 2,000 euro raise.<\/p>\n
They did not renew his contract and summarily sacked him.<\/p>\n
Suddenly, Barry didn\u2019t have a bar to play in.<\/p>\n
Thankfully, the two friends have been planning some additional gigs for Colson, primarily for Cloudflare\u2019s guests at their small set-up in Davos, on the third floor of a pizzeria a few buildings down. \u201cThey had a DJ in the house who also played the piano,\u201d says Colson. \u201cMatthew was okay to double my pay for six nights.\u201d<\/p>\n
Now what he needed was a more permanent establishment.<\/p>\n
Prince, who had met his wife Tatiana, at the Tonic Bar in 2014, two years after he first met Colson at the same venue, could not just leave his \u201cpal in the lurch\u201d. His team started scouting for a place and, after the initial stonewalling from local landlords and realtors, found a space.
It had three issues. It was far out at one end of the Promenade. It didn\u2019t have heating. And it didn\u2019t have bathrooms.<\/p>\n
The last two were easy to fix, said Prince. And as for the crowd, Colson was a strong enough magnet to pull them in.<\/p>\n
Soon, the brand-new Barry\u2019s Piano Bar was born at the Cloudflare House.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor 51 weeks of the year, this is an abandoned space where sometimes the owner plays poker with his friends. But for one week, it becomes Barry\u2019s space,\u201d says Prince, wearing his pride on the sleeves.<\/p>\n
Eighteen months after their first date, when Prince and Tatiana got married, they flew down Colson to Mykonos, Greece, to perform at their pre-wedding party. Theirs is a heartwarming story in sub-zero temperatures, a testament to what true friendship can achieve, say their mates.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe great thing about Barry is not just the guy,\u201d says Bremmer. \u201cMake no mistake, he\u2019s a tremendous act, but this is the only place in Davos where you are not judged by your designation, market capitalisation, wealth, or access. Everyone bonds over music around the piano. Here we are all humans.\u201d<\/p>\n
The WEF at Davos, argues another old-timer, is by no means representative of the world but Barry\u2019s Piano Bar is. \u201cIt represents the true spirit of Davos which is fast getting lost,\u201d he adds.<\/p>\n
As Prince puts it: \u201cWith a legacy of over 30 years, Barry has been a witness of WEF\u2019s peaks and troughs. He\u2019s the only chain of continuity.\u201d<\/p>\n
MOUNTAIN MELTDOWN
One can draw a line from the honkytonk saloons of the 1800s America, where the player piano was invented, to the duelling pianos of Pat O\u2019Brien\u2019s Bar in New Orleans, to jukeboxes in bars. But in an age when everyone walks around with their own playlists, with music flowing through headphones and earbuds, what\u2019s the role of a piano bar? From Manhattan to Tokyo to Mumbai, real estate today comes at a heavy premium and a restaurateur can cram three-four tables into the same footprint as a Fazioli piano.<\/p>\n
Davos has changed, too. Thirty years ago, it was a far smaller but intimate gathering. Now the whole world jets into the village for a week. Back then, the number of delegates with white badges, the coveted status symbol of WEF invitees, was little more than a thousand. In 1992, before Barry\u2019s first WEF gig, Nelson Mandela met the then South African president FW de Klerk. <\/p>\n
In 1994, Israeli foreign minister Shimon Peres met Yasser Arafat, chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organisation, leading to a significant draft agreement on Palestinian self-rule in Gaza and Jericho, a key step towards the Oslo Accords, culminating in both Arafat and Peres, along with Yitzhak Rabin, receiving the Nobel Peace Prize that year for West Asia peace efforts.<\/p>\n
This year, President Trump unveiled his idiosyncratic Board of Peace initially designed to cement Gaza\u2019s rocky ceasefire but which he foresees taking a wider role akin to the United Nations. This year, there were an estimated 2,500-3,000 white-badge guests at WEF, by invitation or purchased for CHF 27,000 ( \u20b931 lakh) a pop. With Larry Fink as chair, the Forum is also seen pushing the US agenda far more than the earlier European consensus.<\/p>\n
\u201cBack then, the Promenade had shops. Now for one week even the hair salon turns into a pavilion. Every square inch is taken over by corporations and monetised,\u201d says Colson. The hard-drinking, cigarchomping Wall Street high rollers, with their tailored suits and $995 Chateau Latour, have also given way to the socially awkward, introverted and precocious Silicon Valley snowflakes who drink tequila and mezcal till dawn. Colson says they are bad tippers too. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe tech crowd has tasted success very early on whereas many of the old-school blokes made their fortunes starting from boiler rooms. They knew how to lead their lives.\u201d<\/p>\n
TAKE IT FROM THE TOP
The secret sauce of a great piano bar is to make it come to life no matter the zip code, and Colson knows how to read the room. He does not have a set list but a long catalogue of over 1,000 songs, the lyrics of which are either in his mind or in the laptop as a backup. \u201cIt\u2019s always spontaneous,\u201d he says. \u201cI never know what I\u2019m going to sing.<\/p>\n
There is no order for my show. It\u2019s completely interactive, which often catches people off guard.\u201d<\/p>\n
Colson also uses a computer keyboard for bass sounds, much like Ray Manzarek of the Doors who would play a left-handed bass guitar along with the keyboards. To his right, there is a little box which is a drum machine for the beats. At times, he also plays the harmonica along with his cache of classic pop and rock anthems.<\/p>\n
\u201cMusic of the \u201970s and \u201980s works for everybody. Doesn\u2019t it?\u201d he asks. Going by the bar\u2019s decibel levels that were getting cranked up as if to fill the silence of a post-midnight town, I simply nodded in agreement. And it was only mid-week.<\/p>\n
Colson refuses to be a Baby Boomer, although he is born in 1963 to a coal miner father and a singer mom in a family of musicians. \u201cThe 80s was my thing. I really became an adult then. I am more Generation X and everyone still loves to sing along to those songs,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
Contemporary chart-toppers don\u2019t interest him\u2014those songs lack character or punch, or both, he says. \u201cThe songs now are so repetitive. No dynamics at all, with hardly any peaks or valleys.\u201d <\/p>\n
But he\u2019s clear about one thing: \u201cWhoever doesn\u2019t know Billy Joel\u2019s \u2018Piano Man\u2019 should just be banned. Absolutely\u201d But being the ringmaster, referee and the regaler all rolled into one is not easy. In today\u2019s polarised, highly woke environment, Colson needs to be extra careful as sometimes things get out of hand in a matter of minutes. Guests have blown cigarette smoke on his face, grabbed his microphone, spilled drinks on him and the piano. <\/p>\n
Some celebrities have even stumbled up to him and asked for cocaine. He would never allow any guest to hijack the microphone for politics or protests. Just last year, a guest wanted Colson to congratulate an individual who had just been appointed to a government post. \u201cI said, no, I\u2019m not going to congratulate that person\u2026 That\u2019s political and I\u2019m not bringing that into this bar. Nope,\u201d he says, shaking his head vigorously. \u201cI simply switch off the microphone.\u201d<\/p>\n
PAPS VS PRIVACYBut do these VIPs really let their hair down? Isn\u2019t the ubiquitous mobile phone camera the biggest killjoy? One wrong move, one out-of-turn comment can snowball into a social media maelstrom in seconds. Colson has been a hit because he never peddled the secrets that unfolded in his bar. <\/p>\n
Back in the day, he says, \u201cThere was no such thing as video bloggers or phones and there was an unwritten rule with journalists and CEOs and prime ministers alike that whatever happened in that bar stayed in that bar and that was true. People respected the privacy of others and thus mingled freely.\u201d<\/p>\n
Today restricted access or entry solely by invitation is the way to retain \u201cexclusivity\u201d.<\/p>\n
More importantly, Colson tries not to change. He gets philosophical while elaborating: \u201cHuman beings are human beings regardless of their background, bank balance, or nationality. It doesn\u2019t matter to me.<\/p>\n
I am the same person who plays for the billionaires at Davos and then at Little Italian Restaurant at Halifax, Canada. I am the same to everybody.\u201d<\/p>\n
The humble household he was born into shaped his character. \u201cWe were very poor but we were well loved,\u201d he recalls. \u201cI have learnt never to let things get the best of me or walk around with a big head.\u201d<\/p>\n
After the annual Davos sojourn, he travels to Bergen in Norway to play at a bar in a fish market for eight weeks\u2014once in May and again in November. Every April and June, he is in the Canary Islands playing at a local bar called Black & White. Intermittent special projects aside, the rest of the year Colson loves to stay in Halifax, which he now calls home.<\/p>\n
\u201cDuring the week of WEF, I fill up my gas tank to the hilt\u2014this one week is like my heroin fix,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
Despite the ambient cocktail chatter, Colson manages to fall into a reverie as he sways above the keys, peering down at his fingers as if he were shuffling the pieces of an intricate jigsaw puzzle.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s a grace to what he does, his own craft operating at the highest of levels, night after every single night, wringing in every drop of the din of a crowded space swirling around him, the bar noise becoming, you could argue, a necessary part of his music.<\/p>\n
See you at Barry\u2019s next year?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Davos: Sitting behind a baby grand piano in a black tee and an open suit jacket that makes…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":274997,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[138,155040,155041,219,111,139,69,142206,143801,155042,52833,142624,155038,155039],"class_list":{"0":"post-274996","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-davos-piano-man","10":"tag-davos-piano-man-wef","11":"tag-economy","12":"tag-new-zealand","13":"tag-newzealand","14":"tag-nz","15":"tag-wef","16":"tag-wef-davos","17":"tag-wef-davos-piano-man","18":"tag-world-economic-forum","19":"tag-world-economic-forum-davos","20":"tag-world-economic-forum-davos-2026","21":"tag-world-economic-forum-davos-piano-man"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274996","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=274996"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274996\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/274997"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=274996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=274996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=274996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}