Now it’s time to check out the bands performing on 20th July, first day of Milhões de Festa. In overall, looks like the day with the most Portuguese bands performing, but that doesn’t mean there’s not quality here with Baroness being absolute headliners, to the joy of many metalheads and others.
(For this article and the following, I’ll review the Taina Stage and the swimming-pool concerts separately, unlike both Milhões and VICE stages, since there’s no overlap and they occur continuously)
Equations © Amílcar Rodrigues
Swimming-Pool Stage
My advice: go early to the swimming pool if you feel like enjoying a swim. And I’m not saying this because of the number of people the pool will have by the peak of the afternoon, but due to a lot of fucking great partying concerts (“a lot”, they’re just four actually). Starting with Jibóia, Óscar Silva’s one-man-show project, consisting of crawling rhythms and guitar-riffs who bite, since its name means “boa constrictor” in Portuguese. Expect great reveries and crazy stuff. Ten points for Slytherin.
The next band is math-rockers Equations – oh come on, I’ve got already a bad fame for lame puns -, and expect nothing but amazing things happening right here. If you were one of the fifteen people who went to see them at the Lovers’ Stage last year you know what I’m talking about: nudity. This year, with the first record released, with an always ready-to-party swimming pool and well, even less clothes, I hate this word but it’s going to be epic. PS: there’s nothing wrong with the frontman’s voice.
ALTO! They’re next and ready to rumble. Also bringing a new album this year (critically acclaimed, nothing special) this band knows their shit and won’t have a problem playing loud and clear. Don’t judge the “Made in Barcelos” tag, it would be a perfectly good band to play at a later hour, showing that this year the swimming pool isn’t just a spot for chillin’.
Way to ruin my speech now with the last name playing here, Lovers & Lollypops Soundsystem everybody. And yes, it’s that good bad. Don’t even expect to hear the most foolish sounds from the turntables of the three big bosses of Portuguese music scene, and have a great DJ set by 5:30 pm, because it makes even more sense that in somewhere else night club by three am. Play The Smiths and Scooter, please be there, it’s not worth it.
New Kind of Mambo @Termómetro 2012 © Musicómetro
Taina Stage
First name of the stage who’s going to compete with the swimming pool is Tren Go! Soundsystem, also a one-man-show who relies exclusively in an electric guitar and pedals. It gets noisy, for sure, with a little help from a loop station. This should be interesting, it’s a similar project to Jibóia and they both start by the same time, make your choices!
Ready for a New Kind of Mambo? Time for the blues-rock to make a hearing in Milhões, in form of a duo, boy and girl, guitar and drums respectively. Yeah, recently it’s been a cliché this format of a band, but the thing is that it works. Go shake a leg with them.
Here’s the first glimpse of metal of the day, it’s Burning Man. Clearly these kids have the school of slugde, and a know-how that translates in very interesting rhythm notations. Metal fans won’t miss this, and maybe the people who already got to see Alto! before.
To enclosure this panoply of sounds that is Taina Stage, Savanna. And the word “panoply” also fits in Savanna’s music, which takes a little of progressive rock sometimes (the keyboards do the resemble), hard rock, sometimes even metal. Sure it is refreshing, and the one name that’s inexcusable for you to not check at Taina this day, even at a nice time.
BARONESS.
Main Stages
Opening the Milhões Stage we have La La La Ressonance, and what a formidable band. I guess it’s correct to call them a veteran band, since they have three albums out and their music is pretty mature when compared with most bands on the lineup. The jazz vibe is indissoluble from their sound, but for sure way more electric and straightforward
Second metal band of the day, Löbo, doom-metal from Setúbal, Portugal. What’s to expect? In first, a little help from RA, Rei Abutre, in the electronics; then, a sluggish and loud guitar persisting; and all of a sudden, the exploding moment where the tension is unleashed and shit, you’re scared as hell. It’ll be fun!
What to say about Sensible Soccers? Great name for a band, penetrating ambience as hell, without forgetting some cool bass and guitar work. Seriously, this gets astonishing. Plus: when you have two Macs, why do you need a drum set for? Chillin’. I’m absolutely sure this will work so much at Milhões. Just charge the sound a lot, please.
This is it, bearded fellas and mustached girls: Baroness. The big name of the day, and the first foreign band to play, uncanny (and I’m not considering League foreign). And all I can think about right now is… it will fuckin’ rock. Fuck subgenres, fuck cheap talk, and hopefully fuck this last album too (I haven’t heard it, but trusting other people’s words it’s a letdown). Also fuck the “metal fan exclusively”, this is for everyone. Bring it!
The second foreign band is Holy Other, adding electronic to the mixture. I guess they go fish a little bit of R ‘n’B, reminding me trip hop at times, although nothing to do with? Witch house so it seems. It’s the kinda thing to work just right or simply making people uninterested, and to make their task even more difficult the following band is…
…Throes + The Shine! Well actually it’s not a band but two bands, Throes do rock and The Shine are a kuduro act. Glue them together and you have rockuduro, and honestly one of the most interesting projects born in Portugal in the last couple of years. How to describe it? It’s really fucking danceable, you get to feel the intensity of a rock concert and express it in some moves, like in a Buraka Som Sistema concert (reference to the readers unaware of the kuduro genre). And The Shine duo are great MCs as well, it’s so much fun. It will be, I assure you.
Throes + The Shine (batida)
To finish the night, dj sets from Meneo and Glam Slam Dance. Announcing them just like this, because by the hour they occur I won’t be very judicious, but let’s see if they surprise me.
Other bands to check: Youthless and League.
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bernardo@bolachas.org