The curtain does not come down at Paredes de Coura. Instead, as Saturday’s headliner Franz Ferdinand plays their last couple of songs — unlike in their national debut back in 2006, they do not shy away from performing crowd pleaser “This Fire”, even though, one more time, forest fires wreck havoc across the country — an arsenal of colorful balls is being pulled from the very top of the natural amphitheater. They’re launched at the audience as the festival’s aftermovie is shown to a sold-out crowd immediately after the end of the show, to the tune of the unofficial anthem of the festival. And we can’t help but feel nostalgic already.
The second day of the festival felt somewhat lackluster — at least to our tastes — with not much to write home about. The exception was another fun and engaging headline show from crowd favorites Portugal. The Man, who would later spend a few days in the country visiting FC Porto’s stadium and museum and following the team on their match away at Gil Vicente. Their music might not really be our thing, but they have decent taste. Not only in football clubs, but also in their walk-on track: if you like “Unchained Melody”, we like you.
It’s not that the day was totally useless — Perfume Genius, LA Lom and local talents Travo, substituting Maruja, who had cancelled earlier that day — had their moments. But all these acts had the tough job of following up what was probably the best festival day in years, a Wednesday for the ages. For a select few, it started with the most pleasant of surprises: a surprise Cass McCombs show right in the heart of the village of Paredes de Coura. When we arrived at the elevated walkways of urban park Portas do Corno de Bico, overseeing the village and the festival grounds, we found McCombs jamming in a quasi-acoustic format, together with his guitar and bass players, a drum machine, and a faithful lyrics book. Well, almost faithful, we guess – at one point, the wind decided to turn over the page containing the lyrics to “Brighter!” as they played the Big Wheel and Others tune.
The short showcase was a rare opportunity to see McCombs pick up a deep cut (“Aeon of Aquarius Blues”), a pastoral version of the “hit” “County Line”, a throwback to early Cass (“Not the Way”) and a couple of new songs off the album he would release two days later, Interior Live Oak. The full-band show later in the day, reunited with his drummer, would reveal an almost even split of new songs (including the excellent “Asphodel”) and other recent tracks (“Belong to Heaven” is top-10 material), not going further back than Big Wheel for its rollicking title track.
Earlier on, under a scorching sun, Being Dead had opened the festival with an entertaining surf-tinted garage rock set, with their tour manager joining the party halfway through the show, before the guitar player and drummer swapped duties during EELS‘ standout track “Rock ‘n’ Roll Hurts”. Opening the main stage of the festival was Samuel Úria. The singer-songwriter from Tondela, still presenting his latest record, late 2024’s 2000 A.D., brought with him a rockier outfit than we’re used to seeing him with. Highlights from 2000 A.D. included “Daqui para trás”, with guest singer Carol, and “Kuchisabishii”, unfortunately without guest singer Margarida Campelo on stage. There was time (well, about a minute…) for a track off — we guess — his punk days, and Úria ended his show in style with a swinging, tropical version of “É preciso que eu diminua”, perhaps his best song. We didn’t know it at the time, but it ended up the best main stage daylight show we’ve seen all week.
We didn’t have to wait too long to witness the best overall show we’ve seen all week since MJ Lenderman and the Wind took to the stage just a few hours later. In front of an already crowded amphitheater that anticipated a very well sold first day of the festival (4-day passes did sell out a week before the start), and one year after playing the smaller stage with Wednesday, Lenderman was playing one of the biggest shows of their career so far. Missing a pedal steel player — Wednesday’s Xandy Chelmis did not join the short European summer stint — the songs sounded a bit more languid than, for example, at the Crazy Horse-style free rolling extravaganza we’ve seen in Barcelona earlier this summer. But this incarnation of the Wind made the songs sound heavier, too, with older tunes like “Toontown” or “I Ate Too Much at the Fair” roaming into doomy, stoner territory.
A band that is able to reinvent itself with every short tour an ocean away from home is a band whose shows we want to keep coming back to. And even if it didn’t, is there anyone willing to pass on another chance to listen to Lenderman’s excellent, slow burning version of Nate Amos’ “Dancing in the Club”, the 1-2 punch of “Hangover Game” (some of the best lyrics of the whole festival, and of the 2020s, too) and “Knockin'”, and all the unskippable tracks off his latest Manning Fireworks, our album of 2024? The answer is no, and the author of this article would go on to watch another iteration of the band, this time borrowing a backing vocalist and the pedal steel player from Ryan Davis’ Roadhouse Band — the strongest contender for album of 2025, just saying… — play two sold out shows in Amsterdam’s Tolhuistuin one week later. Three obvious 5/5 shows.
Vampire Weekend headlined a fantastic opening day in style, with a brilliant stage setup keeping the audience on their toes. The Brooklyn band opened with what seemed like a reduced version of the band doing a throwback to their first two albums (“Mansard Roof”, “Holiday”). On the coda of the excellent “Ice Cream Piano”, the giant curtain serving as their backdrop finally falls down, revealing the rest of the septet as we’re bombarded with swirling violins reminiscent, according to one of our friends, of some Belle and Sebastian track we can’t remember the name of.
Halfway through the set, the violin player will end up being the star of the show: she’s taking center stage and commanding the band during the monumental “Sympathy”, off Father of the Bride; this is followed by a lengthy, conga-heavy version of SBTRKT’s “New Dorp. New York”, with Ezra Koenig himself, still looking like a young lad on his early 40s, taking on sax duties. Before, we found ourselves surrounded by a few young couples dancing close together, smiling at each other and kissing like they were listening to the most romantic song on Earth, while Koenig sang the lines “You’ve been cheating on, cheating on me / I’ve been cheating on, cheating on you”. Kind of funny. Please use that song as you walk down the aisle.
As we walked up the hill to catch a bit of a very packed (and extremely entertaining) Joey Valence and Brae show, we wondered how could a VW show feel so fulfilling when so many essential tracks were left out (“Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa”, “Campus”, and not ending with “Walcott” in front of a crowd of young people yearning for some crowd surfing is insane). The answer is quite simple: Vampire Weekend have mastered the art of being a festival headliner while still putting out songs that don’t bore people with every new record. Too bad we can’t have them every year.
Despite a first day that was all we could ask for and more, Paredes de Coura wasn’t done yet. In 2024, bar italia had cancelled their show last minute; they “returned” this year, as a quintet, to the sound of Mambo No. 5. They brought with them a bunch of new tracks off the forthcoming album Some Like It Hot, out Oct 17 on Matador. One of those, first single “Cowbella”, commanded a barrage of crowdsurfing bodies, before closing off things with a track from their debut, Quarrel‘s “skylinny”. An hour earlier, on the same stage, Cassandra Jenkins‘s timid set, cut short by a show that dragged on for too long on the main stage, drew the attention of all the non-chattering crowd (phew) of the festival. Maybe we didn’t need the interludes, but not her fault. The show itself was competent, with a selection of the highest points of her two albums (“Delphinium Blue”, “Michelangelo”, “Hard Drive”); unfortunately, anything pensive and quiet will not reach its heights at 6pm on an open-air festival.
Jenkin’s show was followed by Geordie Greep‘s seven-piece maximalism. “Going solo” rarely means having more musicians on stage than in your now defunct band, but that’s what we were treated to. We haven’t exactly been blown away by The New Sound, Greep’s debut album after the demise of black midi, whose 2019 and 2023 shows were nothing short of insane. But the centerpiece of that album, “Holy Holy”, was also the heart and soul of a sprawling, freestyle show consisting of one third bizarre Pattonesque antics, another third a distillation of 20th century Brazilian masters, and another third Zorn-ish academic jazz freakout… if you can imagine the audience singing and crowdsurfing to that. Will we be revisiting The New Sound more often, in light of how entertaining the show was? Probably not, but we’ll likely remember the drummer repeating “Tudo bem” / “Cala a boca” / “Obrigado” for what seemed like forever.
Anyone who was enthralled by spiritual twins black midi and Black Country, New Road before and during the pest years is probably still mourning the loss of both bands. It’s been over three years since BCNR dropped one of our favorite albums of the decade and parted ways with their former frontman, and many feel like the current incarnation is simply not the same band anymore and the current members should not keep using its name. Regardless of your stance towards that (that is, if you care enough about the subject to even be in one of the camps), the band has obviously lived two lives before and after the departure of Isaac Wood. Or is this the third, really? The twee incarnation of BCNR, immortalized in the live recording Live at Bush All a few months after the personnel change, sounded nothing like the British ensemble sounded this summer in Paredes de Coura, off the release of their new exquisite, Joanna Newsom-worship new album, Forever Howlong.
This was another of the bands we’ve seen earlier this summer at Primavera Sound Barcelona, and the impersonal, huge stage they played at didn’t really help them. (It did not help Cassandra Jenkins either.) Nor did the constant conversation from both locals and tourists. But it also feels like BCNR have upped their game and were able to bring their new songs to new heights at the most beautiful of stages. Sure, there are moments where it really feels like we’re watching a graduation party where the theater kids are the stars of the show – flutes can have that effect. But no one who pays attention while listening to “For the Cold Country” and especially “Nancy Tries to Take the Night” can give up on this band, no matter what their feelings towards Ants from Up There are.
Later on, the most pleasant of surprises: off a passable King Krule and before a forgettable Mk.gee headline show, we did not plan to stick around for long at the LA Jungle show. But the Belgian guitar/drums duo brought a much needed infectious energy to an otherwise lukewarm ending to the third day of the festival, and it deserves a proper shout here. By the first ten seconds of the show, there were already beer cups flying; sure, the music itself makes us think of the “We have x at home” meme (where, in this case, “x” could either be early Hella or pre-historic Battles). But we always need more cowbell in our lives and they brought the goods. Bonus point for bringing their own merch and selling it right off their suitcase for very reasonable prices. Hats off. We needed the energy burst, and they deserved the few hundred new fans.
The last day is always as bittersweet as it gets. Our energy levels are down, our coughing is on the rise, our boogers are pitch black from all the dust. Fortunately we’ve got Ana Frango Elétrico early on to lift our spirits up. The young Brazilian songwriter, recently signed to international tastemakers Mr. Bongo, was able to gather what was probably the biggest crowd we’ve seen in years for the opener of the main stage — a sign of what was to come later, on a sold-out Saturday at Coura. Sometimes evoking the best of MPB, sometimes going all groovy, with nods to cult classics — Crystal Waters’ “Gypsy Woman” granted Fainguelernt some extra cool points among the couple of eurodance DJs sitting on the grass — there was never a dull moment here. We wish we could say the same about Chastity Belt and Hinds’ shows at the smaller stage that afternoon.
Before sundown, DIIV returned to the big stage with Frog in Boiling Water, probably the best album of their career. A memorable show thanks to their visual work that ranged from incredibly funny when mocking cults (we wish they would not cut short the absolute highlight “Soul-net”, with their conspiracy wacko-inspired website scrolling in the background) to downright cringe: the earnest America- and West-hating segment, complete with the message “AMERICA IS THE GREAT SATAN!” over Al Jazeera footage that made the crowd roar was the cherry on top. Like DIIV could even have a career making and playing music, and like we could be gathering, beer in hand, for a week of absolute hedonism in any of the societies that would love the Western way of life to be destroyed. Bonus: their funny critiques of capitalism through multiple snippets of cringy corporate-style presentations of their new songs turned even more hilarious as they close their set ripping into “Doused”. Yes, the song that was brought to virtually every household in Portugal over ten years ago thanks to the telecom advert below (while playing on a stage branded by another multinational telecom). Reality trumps fiction any day.
Over 30 thousand people visited Paredes de Coura that night, mostly for headline shows by Air and Franz Ferdinand. We already mentioned the latter at the beginning of the article. It’s a band that knows what people want: the hits. The French band did basically the same while avoiding their most well known song like the plague. Towards the end of the show, they still teased “Playground Love” by playing “Highschool Lover” off the Virgin Suicides OST, before going into an expansive “Dirty Trip”, from the same soundtrack. But most of the time was devoted to Moon Safari, played almost in its entirety to the absolute enthrallment of the audience.
Our highlight that night had to be Sharon van Etten, though. On her first foray into fronting a band, she seems like a completely different person, breaking from her indie singer-songwriter mould and keeping herself away from the trap that comes with becoming an Aaron Dessner-produced musician: when did that ever improve anyone’s sound? But, in her own words, at the encore of a concert in Utrecht the following week, she’s “still the same girl”. On stage with the Attachment Theory, though, 2025’s van Etten sounds like Siouxsie fronting the Cure. Her goth-coded backing band also breathes new life into some of her most recent back catalogue: “Comeback Kid” sounds punchier than ever, “Every Time the Sun Comes Up” is strangely… upbeat, considering what we would expect from black-clad musicians giving 80s throwback. And then there’s “Seventeen”, elevated to the anthem of a discography that did not really promise any kind of anthemic anything for the better part of a decade, complete with a heartwarming shout out to an enthusiastic newlywed fan at the barricade (who used to write here).
And this is also where the magic of Paredes de Coura lies. Yes, we’ve seen lots of these artists recently, either in other festivals or in headline shows. But the truth is that 9 times out of 10 each show played here is more memorable than any other. It’s partly the backdrop, partly the sarrabulho at 3am, partly the friends who surround us, partly the (increasingly!) nice and attentive audience, probably partly the fact that some of these artists are playing some of their biggest shows to date. All in all, there are always excellent reasons to pay those exorbitant flight tickets to Porto in the middle of August.
Vodafone Paredes de Coura returns on August 12-15 2026, unless there’s another catastrophic event. Tickets should be available sometime in the next few months via their website; it often only sells out closer to the date, but start making plans.