Kim Ki O and Mkrni were meant to play in the previous day but had to postpone their gigs, so they opened the day at the pool stage. When we arrived there, Mkrni was already playing, followed by Narwhal and Nazka. All of them provided nice background music to a game of cards that I invariably lost almost all the times, but the prize goes to the drony/psychedelic outfit Narwhal. I almost got up to go see them, but figured out that losing one more round was probably a better choice. The only band playing on the pool that day that made me get up from my towel was Pega Monstro.
Author: bolachas
I intended to post about this in a long time now, but work has since piled up and I forgot about it. “Ghosts of the Dust Bowl” is the latest recording from Cliff Dweller, a multi-media collective from LA. I found this album while browsing the “folk” tag on Bandcamp – something that I should probably do more often – and it sounds like a homage to the Old West, the lonesome music being reminiscent of early, Spoke-era Calexico. I’m currently reading the Border Trilogy by Cormac McCarthy and this might be the perfect album to read it along to. Feel free to stream or download it for free below, courtesy of the artists themselves.
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Milhões de Festa 2011: Day Two, the review
On the second day, we chose to skip the crowded pool: there was a giant entry line, which means virtually no space to lay a towel, let alone having a spot away from the sun. We took a walk in the city instead, and stumbled into The Glockenwise playing on a quiet garden near the city center, while being filmed by the Videoteca Bodyspace team.
After a couple of weeks devoted to the fabulous festival we’re still covering, I took little time to listen to new music. Opening an email at random, I discovered Breton Parks, a multi-instrumentalist from Denver, Colorado who has just put out his debut album, “Whelk”, available for free on his webpage. This guy can write pretty decent songs; why is he giving away his music for free instead of having a big label milking his talent? Having listened to the first half of the album, “Passing Off” and “Of Course That’s What You’re For” are the highlights. Someone please download this album, record it to a CD and send it to me through snail mail. It’s quicker than my connection back home and I’m pretty sure “Whelk” deserves the time you’d spend doing all that for me. For us.
So, looks like those three days of pure awesomeness are now officially over. Actually, they were already over four days ago, but we felt the need to be physically and mentally able to write something about the festival before posting anything. After all, we’re just average nerds that only leave our basement once in a blue moon, leave alone camping for four fucking days and nights. To add to the mayhem, the piece of crap that is my Samsung i5500 refused to turn on during the trip to Barcelos and I was left with a phone that can only deal with phone calls and SMS. Besides not being able to tweet (damn, I even bothered to install the Twitter app) I even bought a newspaper to keep up with the world (which technically means “check the obituary”, because nothing really happened while I was away, besides people dying) Screw technology and that Norwegian fucktard who thought he was the smoke monster from LOST. You’re not, and we all hope you die in a fire.
DAY ONE
Oh, how I missed this town. After a first evening + night of rediscovering places where you can dine and get half-drunk using the same amount of money you’d need to pay for a regular breakfast on my city, we gathered our credentials and went to the (now crowded as fuck) pool, where Black Bombaim were just ending their performance. Unfortunately we were only able to listen to a couple of minutes of their groovy tunes while we tried to settle somewhere among the piles of half-naked, nice looking hipsters (see? We’ve already convinced you to come to the festival next year). Hayvanlar Alemi were next, their Middle Eastern-tinged riffs blending with the scorching Barcelos heat. The team from Ankara, Turkey gave the first great concert of the festival – or at least they were doing it, before we left to see Botswana. Or not to see Botswana, since we thought the L&L stage was right next to the pool. Turns out it wasn’t. Also, that dusty riverside stage looked like Barcelos’ answer to the Super Bock Super Rock festival. Then we were faced to experience the worst aspect of the festival, one of the few letdowns – Dirty Beaches was just the first of a ridiculous amount of concerts to be delayed for several minutes. That’s obviously not a problem if you are not too concerned about British punctuality and are okay with seeing concerts from 2pm to 6am and getting just a few hours of sleep in a tent, but hey, isn’t this rock’n’roll? After all, you can sleep/get some rest when you’re dead.
Dirty Beaches
Dirty Beaches’ concert was nothing special, so we left the dusty stage (unfortunately, to never return ever again) and headed to the main festival site, while The Glockenwise played their set in the Pool on their weird Summer vests.
The Glockenwise
The festival site is among the greatest you’ll ever see in a summer festival: a big hill in front of the main stage so everyone can see the stage – as well as the river Cávado and the Barcelinhos beach – clearly (even if you’re a midget), plenty of grass to sit in (and lots of stone benches for those afraid of bugs), a fair amount of WC stalls and beer stands. We missed the porco no espeto stand though, and we chose to dine outside the festival site for the three days to save some money.
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CACHORRÃO. Nothing special compared to Xispes’ panadão.
On the VICE stage, limited by a stone wall used by the bearded guy from Monotonix to jump into the crowd last year, Portuguese post-rockers Riding Pânico were already playing. The band played every edition of the festival and this time they brought a friend: playing with them was Chris Common, known for playing drums in the incredible These Arms are Snakes, one of the best live acts the 00s have witnessed. Although their gig was tight, I must confess I spent half of the time thinking about shouting “BRING TAAS BACK” to Chris or something. I really missed them until later in the night – we’ll discuss that later. On the other half of the concert I was, of course, headbanging. Riding Pânico, you’re more than welcome to come back next year.
Shit and Shine
I really wanted to see Aethenor, but went outside for dinner and arrived just after Shit and Shine started playing. That wouldn’t happen if A) the porco no espeto stand remained in the festival site or B) the Pingo Doce insufficient clerks worked harder and faster. The chicken was okay, but who cares. To add to my disgust, Shit and Shine were a tad dronier than I was expecting and their concert didn’t really pick off until the last couple of songs, when a repetitive, semi-Kuduro beat took over and we could finally smell some party under those bunny hats and two drumkits.
Zun Zun Egui’s Yoshino Shigihar
A change in schedule made Zun Zun Egui play the main stage on Gama Bomb’s spot, who played after them on the Vice stage. The Bristol quartet is the definition of party; their African rhythms, powered by the Mauritian Creole vocals of frontman Kushal Gaya, came down like a blessing upon us all on the early night of Friday. The almost unknown British act played the El Guincho role (his concert, last year, was widely regarded as the partiest of the whole fest) on this years’ edition of the festival. Let’s only hope they start playing here at least a couple of times per year like the Spanish band started doing.
Gama Bomb
Gama Bomb, now playing on the Vice stage, felt like heroes chasing an evil dragon who had kidnapped a helpless princess in her castle. I swear I said that before they asked the audience if they liked videogames. I’m pretty sure most of them answered positively. Is this real life, or is it Dungeons and Dragons? Thrash metal sem merdas for those who were about to rock. Graveyard is a name a lot grimier than Gama Bomb, but they’re not metal at all; at the beautiful Milhões stage, a pure 70s, blues-infused riff fest happened instead. The guys from Sweden are the most recent descendents of the big Zeppelin family and they deserve a medal for not sounding derivative at all. Thumbs up!
Graveyard
Remember when I was bitching about These Arms are Snakes breaking up? That was like, four paragraphs ago. Enter If Lucy Fell, the best Portuguese live act of the last decade. Having not playing a gig in two years, the band fronted by Makoto Yagyu (also a member of Riding Pânico) instantly started shelling out their biggest hits, like “Colossus Kid” or “What If She Fell” from their debut LP, turning the Vice stage into something that looked like an average Athens street during another protest. You could even spot some of the leading Chungwave acts’ band members dancing, moshing and crowdsurfing. As I predicted, this was easily the best concert of the first day of festival. And don’t ever think about not playing shows for two more years. We need you.
If Lucy Fell’s Makoto Yagyu
Liars had the tough task of keeping everyone’s adrenaline levels up after such a punch. After a heavy start, they seemed like they would be up to the challenge, but then they started acting coninhas, adding some ballads to the mix. Boring. You don’t play slow songs at 3AM on an event called Millions of Party. The concert had its moments but made some people sit down halfway. Have I mentioned how comfortable the festival site is?
Liars
To finish up the night, two more comebacks from Portuguese instrumental acts: Veados com Fome and Lobster. First came the trio from Santo Tirso, more than four years since the last gig. Sr. Gonçalves, Sr. Pinto and Sr. Ferreira bombed us with powerful riffs for half an hour, including “18”, “Nelson” or “Paquito”. My only complain is that they didn’t play a cover of the popular hit song Santo Tirso é lindo.
Veados com Fome
Lobster’s Guilherme Canhão crowdsurfing
Lobster, already late in the night, rounded up the first night of concerts after I found out that some hideous bastards fucked up our tent while mounting their own. If you’re reading this, I hope your car died somewhere in a dark road on your way back home, with wild, dangerous animals wandering around it and stuff. Fortunately enough, one of our fellow photographers was there – still sober – the whole time and captured the picture above. Also, thanks to the guy who recorded the video below while we were repairing a tent at almost 5 in the morning.
WORDS: Diogo S. Silva
PICS: Ana M. Bento, Amílcar Rodrigues and Bernardo Costa
