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Vodafone Paredes de Coura 2026

Post author By bolachas
Post date August 24, 2026

As your mortal coil pushes 40 it certainly gets harder to go up and downhill for four days straight. You’ll start giving up on the idea of partying until closing time. You’ll curse the dubious choices of headliners and how late some of your must-sees are playing. You’ll also curse how early some of your must-sees are playing because it’s 30+ every single day. You’ll decide you don’t have to watch every single show of the festival even if you should because you’re working. You’ll slap your head in disbelief when you notice your gel insoles are too worn out and it’s too late to order new ones, you’ll search for keywords like “metatarsal pads”, you’ll bring your own pillow and fan to your accommodation (yes, you last pitched a tent in 2007). You’ll still end up with a neck strain. And as soon as you leave you’ll start making plans to come back the next year because no matter the lineup, the amount of kids smoking cigarettes like this isn’t the year 2026, the diminishing amount of friends making the trip as they get even older than you, the weather, or the amount of dust in your lungs, there is no place like home.

Trying to reduce four days (actually, seven) of a festival with upwards of 70 shows to a top 10 is always a tough endeavour. Shoutout to several acts that didn’t quite make the cut below but deserve a mention: Terraplana, Kurt Vile, Horsegirl, Wet Leg, CMAT, Show Me the Body, Hetta, Patrick Watson, Aldous Harding, or Hermanos Gutiérrez (saying their 11pm slot was some unfortunate scheduling is an understatement). But here’s our top ten:

Tags Carolina Durante, Dame Area, festival, festival paredes de coura, festival paredes de coura 2026, Friko, Greg Freeman, live, prostitute, Ryan Davis, ryan davis and the roadhouse band, sérgio godinho, underworld, university, vodafone paredes de coura, vodafone paredes de coura 2026, vpc, vpc26, Westside Cowboy

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Primavera Sound Porto 2024

Post author By bolachas
Post date June 15, 2024

And it’s gone. Our tenth trip to the Parque da Cidade is over, and despite our usual (and some new) gripes, our eyes are already on next year’s edition: 12, 13, and 14 June 2025. Let’s start with the pros: the three ‘green’ stages of Primavera Sound Porto (the original Vodafone and Super Bock side-by-side stages, plus the new Plenitude stage by the meadow) are unrivalled. You’ll struggle to find any other festival this size where it’s so easy to see most shows from a good spot without having to show up half an hour in advance, no matter how tall you aren’t.

Sadly, the fourth one, the new main stage, is nothing of the sort. A massive stage is necessary for the festival to grow, be able to pull big headliners like SZA and Lana del Rey, accommodate 40k+ visitors, and keep the lights on by selling thousands of daily tickets to people who may or may not care about anything else on the lineup that day. It also helps keeping the festival somewhat affordable – although increasingly expensive – for its core (is it really still the core?) audience who comes to Porto for three days of music. But, after two years, the organisation should now decide, before it’s too late to reverse course: is this kind of growth desirable at all?

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Preview: MENT Ljubljana 2024

Post author By bolachas
Post date February 13, 2024

Showcase festival MENT Ljubljana‘s tenth edition kicks off next week (21-24 February), and we’re going to be there for the first time. Tipped by industry insiders as one of the best events in Europe to discover new talent, we were drawn to it by the focus on European artists (not exclusively, from all over the Balkans, Central, and Eastern Europe), the iconic venues, and, of course, the charming capital of Slovenia. Labels, collectives and other entities (public radio station Val 202, legendary local label Moonlee, or Belgrade-based tastemakers Hali Gali) curate stages during the two main days of the festival, and are the best way to get a sense of regional scenes. To top it off, this year’s edition boasts an extra segment (and an extra day), CE/MENT, focused on clubbing and electronic music, and features an extensive three-day conference, the largest in the region, with over 120 industry representatives spread by 33 panels.

Our thirteen artists to watch all come from different European countries, and most sing in their native languages. A breath of fresh air from your typical anglocentric festival. (Yes, I’m writing this in English so we can understand each other, I’m aware.) We’ll be posting on our Instagram throughout the festival, so make sure you follow us there, too. MENT Ljubljana 2024 runs from 21 to 24 February, and both day tickets and passes are still available.

We have created a Spotify playlist with our top picks (see below), but the festival was kind enough to put together a playlist with all the artists on your favorite streaming service.

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Vodafone Paredes de Coura 2023: our picks

Post author By bolachas
Post date August 8, 2023

© Hugo Lima | fb.me/hugolimaphotography | hugolima.com

Well, it’s that time of the year again. First things first. Let’s start with what 99% of the people want from us every single summer: our printable blocky timetable, which you can download below, in a variety of formats:

PDF | PDF mobile, wed/thu | PDF mobile, fri/sat | XLS

And, while you dream about the current weather predictions actually happening…

…keep reading to find out about our top 10 picks for this year’s festival, as always mostly focused on the smaller names of the lineup. And scroll to the bottom for a Spotify playlist featuring not only the artists featured below, but also acts like Dry Cleaning, Jessie Ware, THUS LOVE, or Crack Cloud.

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Primavera Sound Porto 2023

Post author By bolachas
Post date June 22, 2023

2023 was a landmark year for Primavera Sound Porto: the tenth coming of the festival was also its first without their lifelong naming sponsor, the first four-day long edition at Porto’s Parque da Cidade, and a new main stage and festival grounds’ layout were tested for the first time. Ditching the gorgeous, secluded meadow where the ATP stage once sounded like sacrilege. But the new layout, including previously fenced off areas of the park that are closer to the sea, undoubtedly makes things smoother in a festival that started to feel too crowded, as per last year’s experience. We could do without the smell near the new main stage, but let’s blame the weather for that.